


Now Again a Beloved Son

by ofsevenseas



Category: Captive Prince - S. U. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Baggage, F/M, Gen, M/M, Minor Character Death, Past Abuse, Politics, Swordplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 07:13:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1091079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofsevenseas/pseuds/ofsevenseas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the events of Marlas unfold differently, for the better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [foxxcub](https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxxcub/gifts).



> Dear foxxcub, 
> 
> I fully recognize the ridiculousness of writing 27,000+ words for a Yuletide prompt. Nonetheless, here you are, opening this monstrosity and wondering where the promised Damen/Laurent is. To this I can only say, you said you liked AUs! I plead innocent to everything else. <3

Prince Laurent is not what Damen had expected. 

Damen remembers twin gauntlets engraved with the starburst insignia of the Crown Prince, Auguste’s powerfully built body shifting fluidly between forms, almost too fast to follow, the uncanny sense he had of where Damen would move his sword every time. Fighting him had taken every scrap of strength Damen had held in reserve, drawing on all the moments in training and battle that came before.

His younger brother and heir presumptive, Prince Laurent, looks like he would fall over in a bracing wind. His vivid pallor, set against his brother’s golden looks, reminds Damen of silver Apaliunas, the oracle god who tricked burnished Helios and took the sun for his own domain. However, from a distance, Prince Laurent more closely resembles Artemisia, sister to Apaliunas and austerely beautiful. 

Prince Laurent stands in robes of blood-red and plush, the rich colours making his complexion peaky and ill-humoured; perhaps he dislikes Ios, dislikes the sea breezes playing idly with his hair while he alone waits to be introduced, surrounded by Akielon courtiers.

Somewhere behind Damen, Pherenike of Thrace says, not bothering to lower her voice at all, “My, isn’t he a pretty one. Are we sure Aleron didn’t whelp a girl for his second?” The comment ripples through the gathered audience, men chuckling and women hiding smiles behind glossy ringlets.

Damen feels sorry for him. He hadn’t expected Auguste to send his child brother - his uncle would be more adept at diplomatic overtures, certainly more experienced at handling a hostile court environment. He wonders, for a moment, how Kastor is dealing with the jaded Veretians in Arles. He glances over at his father, and realizes that Theomedes has no intention of stopping the vindictive gossip. It’s cruel, but his father, much like Nikandros, will probably never see Veretians as anything other than enemies to be cut down.

He turns piercing blue eyes on Damen when he walks down the dais to where the Veretian retinue stands, a riot of brightly coloured fabric and embroidery. “Prince Laurent of Vere, welcome to Ios.” He grimaces at himself - perhaps Kastor was right when he volunteered to go to Vere; Damen’s soldierly habits would have him the laughingstock of Arles in just days. “May I present to you my father, King Theomedes.”

Damen’s father nods, loathe to even acknowledge Prince Laurent’s in the throne room, and Damen is ready to usher him to his quarters when he walks past to drop into kneeling position, right against the first raised step of the dais. His movements are precise and calculated to within a hair’s accuracy. Despite the sense of dread fighting its way up into Damen’s throat, he cannot fault Prince Laurent’s sense of the dramatic: every eye in the room has fixed on his shining blond head.

“I thank you for your hospitality, majesty.” Prince Laurent’s voice cuts over the rustling of the crowd gathered behind him, high and still ringing with a child’s clarity. “I have long heard of the primitive splendour of Ios, but truly, the poets cannot do it justice.” 

With that, he rises again, and sweeps out of the room with his reduced household, head held regally high. 

Most of the court is still trying to parse their way through the Veretian lilts in Prince Laurent’s speech, and Damen desperately casts about for a distraction so that his father will not erupt in the manner of the venerable mount Milos. 

Lady Jokaste steps forward. “My king, Prince Damianos appears to be forgetting his duty as a host.”

She is laughing at him, Damen is certain, but he takes his chance to escape and excuses himself. Moments later, he hears his father roar, “Damned Veretian brat! I’ll give him primitive!” Any more expostulations are mercifully muffled by the closed doors. Damen shuts his eyes in silent thanks; he had not relished the task of writing to Auguste and informing him that his brother has been sent back across the border atop a shaved donkey with Theomedes’ ill wishes.

-

“I do not,” Prince Laurent of Vere says with deceptive mildness, “require a nursemaid.”

Jocaste smiles at him, as one intimate friend might to another. “But was it not the orator Timoteus who said, ‘Let not the wise man spurn those who offer him aid’?”

Prince Laurent slants an eloquent glance at Damen, who shrugs, still sleepy from the previous night’s feasting. “Prince Damianos,” Jokaste says, “does not appreciate the subtleties of our philosophers. He favours epic tales of battle.”

Damen suppresses a yawn, lulled by the rhythmic sound of waves slapping against the white cliff faces of Ios. He has given Prince Laurent the prize pick of the palace, and on clear days the window opens to the foam-tipped channel, with a view straight to Isthima. Damen is idly tracking flocks of gulls when he hears Kastor’s name mentioned. He turns to face Prince Laurent and Jokaste, who are sitting close enough to be violating conservative Veretian notions of propriety. To Damen’s absolute lack of surprise, neither exhibits shame at being caught. 

He sighs.

“Cosmas the playwright penned the Trials of Kleitos, which opens with ‘Let not the wise man spurn those who offer him aid’. I did pay attention to my lessons, Jokaste. Stop trying to mislead our guest.”

“It speaks.” Prince Laurent says to Jokaste, and turns to Damen lazily, almost as an afterthought. “I’m touched by your concern for my scholarship, Prince Damianos, but I speak Akielon far better than you do Veretian.”

Damen shrugs again. “Chaperonage is a Veretian tradition.” He pauses, waiting for Prince Laurent to understand his meaning, and then, “The rest of the court won’t get over your introduction for some time. Good luck finding another chaperone.” He grimaces, remembering his father’s angry silences and the court’s sullen nervous energy, aggravated by the wine and feasting. 

Lady Jokaste laughs. “The rest of the court may fall into midden heaps of their own choosing if they wish. I think His Highness is charming. And you will stay, Damen, if you don’t want Solon to know who snuck into his apricot garden and stole all the fruits right before the midsummer feast.”

The apricots had been perfectly balanced against tangy and ripely sweet, had melted on his tongue when he bit into them. “That was three years ago,” he reminds her, “and old Solon likes me.”

“Solon is the head gardener,” Jokaste explains, “he’s a sweet man, if you get on his good side. The only reason Solon retains his fondness for Damen is because he thinks Kastor stole the apricots.” 

Damen grins. “Well, it was his idea.”

Prince Laurent looks bored. “Your lives are so charmingly pastoral,” he says, “tell me, is it true that you couple with sheep in your spare time?”

“I - what?” Damen flounders, more shocked at his ease with the subject than the prurient speculation behind it. 

“Some of our slaves are fairly sheep-like,” Jokaste muses, “they’re that pliant.”

It occurs to Damen, belatedly, that Prince Laurent is trying to impress Jokaste, and succeeding. He now regrets not listening to their conversation earlier; Jokaste is beautiful, ambitious, and descended from impeccable family from both maternal and paternal lines. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that she might seek to marry royalty. He shudders at the workings of their future court, when they both think in the most devious of mazes. No honest man would be safe.

“Sheep might be all that you can get, if you continue to refuse slaves.” Damen taps the empty table meaningfully.

Prince Laurent leans back in his chair, radiating graceful disdain and rearranging the elaborate lacing of his sleeves. Jokaste stands up and begins to pick volumes off the shelves. “Honestly, Damen, weren’t you listening? Adrastus offered him six women. If Prince Laurent weren’t so young it would have been a grave insult.”

“That can be fixed,” Damen says, jumping up to beckon one of his own household inside. “Go to Adrastus, tell him to send the four young men he’s training for me to Prince Laurent instead.”

When Lykaios has walked away, Prince Laurent says, “I’m not going to fuck Akielons. Or their slaves.”

Damen turns, appalled. “I am offering you the services of the finest slaves in Akielos because your own servants were found with ciphers in their packs. You’re lucky my father didn’t behead the lot of them.” When Prince Laurent looks unmoved, Damen continues, “You will be courteous to them. You will treat these slaves with every semblance of care they deserve. Our slaves are trained to submit, but their obedience is a gift, one that demands perfect handling. If I hear of even a whisper of abuse, I will strip you of every amenity you now possess until you learn to be appreciative of their service. Is that clear?”

Damen holds Prince Laurent’s gaze until he blinks and looks away, profile clean and unrepentant. He has to be aware of just how tenuous his position is, the treaty still in its nascent stages, and Damen can’t afford to let Prince Laurent fail under his watch. If he has to supervise the training of a spoiled, headstrong dilettante prince, then so be it. 

Akielos and Vere need the treaty to hold.

He tightens his grip on the arm of his chair, remembering that they are not alone. Damen risks a look toward the library: Jokaste is facing the shelves, posture perfectly relaxed as if she is not even in this room.

-

Damen throws down the sheafs of tax reports when a knock at the door interrupts his already-strained concentration. He passes a hand over his face, and then waves at Euphemia to open the door. 

“If you have the time to bribe my guards to let yourself in, then you can help me make sense of last year’s harvest reports.” Damen says to Jokaste, and then looks closer at her. Her chiton is almost slipping off one shoulder, and her glossy pinned hair shows none of her usual fastidious attention.

“What is it?” He asks, grabbing his sword from its stand near the door. “An attack?”

“Not - not precisely.” Jokaste manages. “A few of the more partisan northerners have cornered your Prince Laurent in the practice yard. I don’t think they mean to leave him unharmed.”

He runs.

Damen can hear it, as he approaches the palace floor that looks out directly over the practice grounds. The ringing of steel against steel, losing its rhythm and becoming faster and sometimes prolonged. He curses and redoubles his speed. Damen thinks of slender Prince Laurent, who barely comes up to his chin even in the heeled boots of Vere, and his indiscriminate anger towards any and all Akielons who cross his path.

Prince Laurent, who likes books and playing Jokaste’s harp, who sneers at his ‘musclebound savagery’ every time Damen offers to teach him how to wrestle in the Akielon style.

His opponents won’t even need a sword, they could just snap him in two with their bare hands.

When Damen skids into the packed dirt arena, Prince Laurent’s body servant is the first to notice, and he promptly prostrates himself in a flurry of limbs, dusty bronze curls and smeared chiton notwithstanding.

“Stop!” Damen roars, wading directly into the mess of bodies that have gathered at one edge of the circular practice ground. He throws his sword to one of the attendants and gathers the curls of two spectators in his hands, preparing to smash their heads together. Thankfully, the rest of the crowd splits away after a fleeting look at Damen’s face, and Damen steadily walks his way into the knot of people. He knows them, men and boys he’s trained with or bested; he doesn’t want to hurt them, but he’s prepared to take down anyone who resists, because he doesn’t have the time to gentle them, to talk them down from the precipice of hotheaded aggression. 

Philokrates has both hands fisted in the fine material of Prince Laurent’s fencing jacket, and is shaking him as a hound would its prey. Neither of them are holding weapons any more, Philokrates having progressed, as Damen had feared, to more direct means of expressing his dissatisfaction. 

“Stop this.” Damen says, “besting a child is no badge of honour, and whatever your grievances with the Veretians, I share a part in the blame. Let us resolve this like men.”

“I am kyros of Sicyon,” Philokrates says, matter-of-fact, “because my father fell in battle against the treachery of Veretians. You are too trusting in the good of others, and this little rat is but a first scout sent to weaken us from the inside.” 

“The king of Vere is a good man.” Damen argues, “he was the one who brought the treaty to us.”

Philokrates shakes his head. “You can trust in Auguste of Vere all you like, but can you say the same for his men? His nobles, his commanders, even his heralds would sooner spit at our feet than deal with us, and you know it. How long before they find a reason to renege? How long before we lose Delpha to the same men who gave it to us atop a platter?”

Whatever Damen prepares to respond is lost in the horn call announcing the entry of the king. Theomedes surveys the crowd, the scattered attendants, a few of Laurent’s slaves still prostrated on the dirt. He looks at Damen, interposed between the newly minted kyros of a northern province and a foreign prince, something in his gaze shuttering closed.

Theomedes says, “A Veretian causing trouble, how novel.”

Belatedly, everyone in the room lowers themselves to their knees, Damen included. He is on thin ice with the court, after Marlas, and needs all the goodwill he can earn if he is to get Prince Laurent out of this in one piece.

The line of Prince Laurent’s mouth is sullen and bruised, but he speaks clearly enough for the whole arena to hear. “Majesty, I unwisely mentioned a hope that I would be able to cross swords with the crown prince, and lord Philokrates took exception, as he deems me unworthy.”

Theomedes looks at the top of Prince Laurent’s bright head as it remains bent low, and says, “Here in Akielos, we use the word ‘kyros’. And you would do well to remember not to speak in front of your betters without permission in the future.”

Damen sees Prince Laurent move his head even further downwards, and breathes a sigh of relief at his docility, unlooked-for but welcome.

“Philokrates is right,” Theomedes continues. “You are not worthy to cross swords with Akielos’ best warriors, but perhaps a bout or two with my son will teach you how a real man fights - with a sword, and not a wily tongue.” His lips curl derisively, and he gestures to the attendants, dismissive, assured in his power. Damen rises as slowly as he can, trying to buy himself time to think.

Theomedes nods once, and then walks out to the viewing area. Soon, the practice field is empty of everyone but Damen and Prince Laurent. Damen checks his sword with the automatic gestures that come of long practice, seeking a way to prevent killing Prince Laurent with an accidental stroke. 

At the first parry, Damen is met and turned away, and the surprise makes him execute the correct series of counter-strikes, beating Prince Laurent back several paces, before he rallies and returns with a series of whirling fast deflections. The fight is engaging, and not as one-sided as Damen had feared. He has a solid grasp of footwork patterns, changing them to suit his needs, and he shows abundant promise in the grace of his maneuvers. Still, he is a child, and Damen a tested warrior. At this pace, Damen knows, Prince Laurent will soon tire, and the use of real steel will prove dangerous should he lose control of the bout.

A series of surprised murmurs have spread out around the viewing area, wrapped around the arena as it is, and under that, a current of anger at Prince Laurent’s Veretian tactics. 

The longer this goes on, the more he is forced to show his training under Veretian swordmasters, training exquisitely calculated to stymie Akielon styles, the more the resentment will build, and Damen does not know if he can trust the crowd to be satisfied - others may step forward, others who are more eager to draw first blood from a child. 

In Prince Laurent, Damen can see shadows of Auguste, the same talent, honed by practice, coupled with a quicksilver wit, a strategy that reveals itself only in layers. Briefly, he wishes he had the training of Prince Laurent; in years he would be nigh unstoppable with a blade. However, Damen can see Prince Laurent’s breath stuttering, his racing pulse, the steadiness in his hand matched by the concentration in his eyes - 

Damen uses a move he had encountered once before, from Kastor, and Prince Laurent’s sword flies high into the air, to land behind Damen, quivering as it stands point-first in the packed dirt.

Prince Laurent’s eyes fix on Damen, wordless and angry. Damen notes, distantly, that the anger does not seem to be directed towards him. He doesn’t have the time to think further on it, as a squad of palace guards come spilling inside the room.

“My lord king,” the leader is saying, “We have found trespassers in the slave courtyards.” 

\- 

“How glorious is Akielos, indeed.” Prince Laurent says, shamelessly, as the court files into the audience chamber to see who has dared to enter the slave gardens without permission.

“It is not only a violation of the king’s property,” Damen replies, sober, “to force someone who has been trained not to resist is accounted a monstrous thing, and the act of the craven.”

Prince Laurent hums consideringly. “But the legal punishments are for - ah, soiling the king’s property.” Damen turns to look at him, surprised that he has already ventured into the study of Akielon statutes. Then Damen registers what he is trying to insinuate. “The laws presume that men act with honour and punish them befittingly,” he says stiffly.

“Yes, I’d noticed the lack of women and those who hold no land. What do you think happens to them? Do the kyroi just sweep them under the eaves of the charnel houses and hope that no one notices?” Prince Laurent says airily, as if he had not been fighting Damen inch for inch just a few moments ago.

Damen is struck anew by the balance of contradictions that make up his charge, who finds the gathered splendour of Akielos primitive, who incites quarrels with men twice his size with no one to watch his back, who discusses the minutiae of legal discourse immediately after a sword fight. He places a hand on Prince Laurent’s shoulder, hoping to quell further inanity, when Prince Laurent looks up at him, eyes dancing. “Look to your hounds.” Damen turns and sees Philokrates, Kassander, and Theodoros in a knot at the center of the audience chamber, all glaring fixedly at him, or rather, the boy beside him.

Hypermenestra, his father’s long-time mistress, weaves her way through the gathered court, her retinue small and modest. Where she passes, the eddies and flow of the court straighten out, as though with a few words she unties the knots that hold them clustered together, and the court itself is nothing but a loom to her, the courtiers her threads. Damen holds out his hands to her, and Hypermenestra walks straight to him, smile blooming full and wide on her face. 

He kisses her carefully on the cheek, and then shifts so that Prince Laurent is equally visible. She brightens at the sight of him and says, “I am glad they did not hurt you very badly.” Prince Laurent makes a graceful bow in return. “They are only boys, you know,” Hypermenestra continues, “and they have had Damianos to themselves for a very long time.”

Prince Laurent seems to choke at her explanation for Philokrates’ open hostility, but controls himself with a heroic effort. “I shall strive to keep this in mind, my lady.”

Hypermenestra nods, appeased. She turns to Damen, looking up into his face, as is her way with Kastor also. “Treat them gently, Damianos. Their actions speak of their love for you, and nothing less.”

Damen nods, and hands her to her chair by the dais. “Stay by me,” Hypermenestra commands, the calm on her face belied by the force of her grip on Damen’s forearm. “Your father is not well-pleased with you.” She follows his eyes to where Prince Laurent stands, clothing and newly minted hair the focus of attention even as he remains alone, pushed close to the front.

“Ah.” Hypermenestra says, and lets Damen go. “Then at least go to your boys in the other line, show that you are not all support for the Veretians.” 

When Damen joins Philokrates at the other side of the audience chamber, Theodoros pushes forward, as if to shield his friend from Damen’s wrath. Damen looks back at Hypermenestra, and she smiles at him encouragingly. “If this keeps up,” Damen says, looking at the way Philokrates’ shoulders loosen with his every word, “people are going to think I cannot fight my own battles.”

“My prince.” Philokrates says, shaken.

“Your words have merit.” Damen admits. “Veretians are prone to deceit and vanity as a people, but the tragedy of deeds and hopes left undone is that they are undone.” He knows if he had defeated Auguste at Marlas, he would have become a man in his father’s eyes, acclaimed and a hero to his people. He does not say it, because he does not yet know what to answer when they ask why he chose otherwise.

“It is a sign of a true friend,” Damen continues, “that you are willing to speak of these doubts to me.” He claps them all on the shoulder, Theodoros and Kassander as well, and their surprise is worrying to Damen, that they should think him so inflexible. 

The doors open then, ponderous and ancient, as his father enters with his guard and all five kyroi of Akielos, save Philokrates, who has yet to officially inherit Sicyon. 

Theomedes takes his time settling into the throne, as he leaves the rest of court to realize the gravity of the situation. Finally, he nods to a guard at the foot of the dais, who says, “Call the prisoners in.” 

There are eight guards in total, when they drag in the intruders. 

Even with their heads held down and immobilized, Damen recognizes the men - Hyakinthos and Sophos, both noblemen from the royal holdings. They are captains in their own right, and fought under Kastor in the war; they have no reason to be in the king’s slave gardens at all.

“Do you deny your crime?” Theomedes says, voice echoing off the stone walls. 

Sophos snarls something unintelligible, and is given a sound cuff in return. Hyakinthos kneels and touches his forehead to the floor, the ultimate submission to a king, an expression of unmistakeable penance. “Please, my king,” he begs, and then falls silent.

“Do you wish to plead for mercy?” Theomedes asks, disbelieving. Damen can feel the shock of it reverberate around the room - a king’s slaves are sacrosanct, the appointment of royal keeper a confirmation of trust and favour. Hypermenestra remains silent by the dais, but she has leaned forward, expression intent.

“Please, we were led there, Sophos and I, we were deceived.” Hyakinthos says, through tears. “We would not have done this thing knowingly, it is death to do so, everyone knows that.”

Damen feels a sudden shift under his feet, as if the room has tilted to allow for the details of the plot unfolding before him: Prince Laurent arranging for the men to be found in the courtyard, the insurmountable insult to Theomedes’ honour, the subsequent disgrace and war inevitable.

“How is it that you were deceived?” Theomedes asks.

“We were told to meet the Veretian prince, he had items that belonged to our kin, fallen in battle.” Purposeful or not, Damen feels their testimony building up a wave of resentment against Laurent. 

Beside Theomedes, Hypermenestra is frowning. “Where were the guards? It is not possible to casually enter the pleasure gardens.”

Adrastus steps up, bowing from the waist. “My lady, the guards stationed in that part of the palace have disappeared. The royal guards are conducting a search as we speak.”

Damen can see it, the moment when the court’s suspicious turn themselves on Prince Laurent, who seems so unimpressed by this new revelation, he could be carved from marble. 

“That’s impossible.” Damen says, in spite of himself. Theomedes taps the arm of the throne impatiently, waiting for his explanation, when Prince Laurent cuts in. “Yes, it is rather foolish, isn’t it? When I would be the first to be blamed the moment anything went wrong.” 

“That presumes you intended to be caught.” Adrastus counters smoothly, as others nod with agreement, temporarily united in their hatred for Vere.

“Caught doing what, precisely? I have the slaves I need. Why would I exert myself unnecessarily? And dangerously, I might add.” Prince Laurent answers him. 

“So you deny having sent for these men.” Nikandros growls, stepping apart from the other kyroi clustered around Hypermenestra.

“I deny having any correspondence with Akielon idiots in general.” Prince Laurent says, to the displeasure of the crowd. Damen wishes, with ten men between himself and Prince Laurent and the eyes of the entire court upon him, that he could put a muzzle to that exquisitely infuriating mouth. He sees Jokaste subtly making her way forward in the ranks of nobles, and hopes that she will prove a restraining influence, and not encourage him to further heights of drama, as is her usual habit.

“Your denial is unnecessary.” Adrastus opens his hands to reveal two golden pins, their glitter muted and tarnished. “These have been found in your rooms.”

Prince Laurent looks bored. “Yes, how pretty. My servants have them as well.”

“Until the slaves are assigned, they are under the protection of the royal house, that is to say, the king.” Adrastus says, vindictive. “There is no reason for you to possess pins that belonged to the favourite of the king.” 

Theomedes says, impatient, “Enough of this quibbling. You come here, under the flags of truce, and yet I find that where you go, quarrels follow. Akielos was prepared to forgive the treachery of Vere, and the word of kings and princes is not easily doubted. Yet you dare intrude where it is forbidden and take trophies as proof? You wish to say that I am so weak I cannot even protect my own slaves? You dare pollute the memory of Iphegin, with your disrespect, with your interference?”

“I pollute nothing,” Prince Laurent says. “Didn’t I just say that my servants have the same pins?”

Damen looks at the mass of faces behind Prince Laurent, and thinks that fixing on details will only antagonise them further. Besides, Adrastus is unlikely to have missed the difference between the king’s pin and Damen’s own, wherever he’s procured these. The men are clearly scapegoats, meant as a diversion. The longer Prince Laurent argues, the less Theomedes is likely to believe him, with Adrastus muddying the waters.

He clears his throat. “Father. Prince Laurent was with me for the entire day.” Theomedes turns a disbelieving gaze on him. “He wished to discuss the intricacies of the Arsaces Cycle with Lady Jokaste, and I was chaperoning them both. So you see, it would have been quite impossible for him to dispose of the guards and steal the pins.”

Damen doesn’t dare look behind himself, to see if Jokaste will give the lie away, but she says, “It is true, majesty, I argued with Prince Laurent about the symbolism of conquest in various epic cycles, and we stayed quite late.”

Theomedes, eyebrows gathering for a thunderous display of temper, opens his mouth. Hypermenestra coughs, and says, delicately, “As for the pins, I’m afraid I am at fault. Adrastus had asked me to sort through Iphegin’s royal gifts, you remember, that promising young man who had such an unfortunate accident - well, he had quite a fine harp, and I knew that Prince Laurent was looking for an instrument to practice with, so I packed it and had it sent to his quarters. I suppose the pins must have gotten mixed up in the confusion of clearing out all the things.”

Prince Laurent is still frowning between Damen and Hypermenestra when Jokaste elbows him from behind. “I have never been in Akielos - how would I know of these men and their fallen kinsfolk? And my brother the king would never insult the treaty with Akielos by holding war trophies. I’m afraid you must look elsewhere for your intrigues. And as for the rest - a misunderstanding.” He says, sweeping one arm out to include Damen and the men around him. 

Hypermenestra nods. “It does seem that way, doesn’t it?”

“As you say, my lady, I will continue to search for the missing guards.” Adrastus says, as if tasting horseradish for the first time. Worse, that he had expected golden honey, and bit into rotting lemons instead.

“What of the pins?” Nikandros demands. “Prince Laurent should have given them to Adrastus immediately.” Damen sees his father nod, satisfied that he will be able to deal a lasting punishment to Prince Laurent after all, and he kneels, before his father can ruin all his and Hypermenestra’s efforts. 

Hypermenestra laughs, “My lord Nikandros, did you not hear Prince Laurent earlier? I think we may lay this at the feet of his ignorance, rather than any disrespect to poor Iphegin.” She looks up at Theomedes, all lighthearted amusement. “I think we have made quite a mess of a small misunderstanding, don’t you, my lord king?”

Theomedes sighs. “Your judgment is as in all things impeccable.” He replies, looking at Damen for a brief moment before fixing his eyes on Prince Laurent. “But you, my son, stole out of the palace to carouse with your troops, and were not with Lady Jokaste and Prince Laurent. I may be long in years, but I am not yet addled. Your eagerness to protect the Veretian betrays you.”

For a moment, the room is breathless. Damen knows without looking that he has just broken the last of his father’s faith in himself. Recognizing that he has as good as dealt a death blow to his father, Damen forces himself to remain still, to carve what he has done into his own heart.

Theomedes says, without looking at Damen, “I have loved you as a father should a son, but you have stepped too far in your presumption. I am king yet, and I say this, for the crime of speaking falsehoods in the presence of the king, you will be sentenced to one hundred lashes at sunrise tomorrow.”

Hypermenestra, as she leaves the audience chamber, looks back at Damen, the expression on her face strangely unhappy. 

-

After the whipping, Jokaste comes to see Damen. He knows that she has, once again, bribed her way past his guards, but he is beyond caring about palace security at the moment.

She lays a hand in his hair, gentle as she has never been before. “You were the apple of your father’s eye, once. All the things that made you who you are have not changed, and your father will remember that he loves you, in time.”

Damen makes a noise in the back of his throat, unable to say more, but it is question and denial both, because he remembers his father’s incandescent pride, in the moments before he rode out to meet Auguste on the field, and knows that Theomedes would rather he die than have a son so weak.


	2. Chapter 2

Auguste says, “A moment, if you please, Prince Damianos.” Damen sits up and blinks at him. He had snuck away to be alone, the customary birdcall of early sunrise sounding far from the presence of a host of tents that have claimed the fields of Hellay for the border congress. 

“Have they - ” Damen says as he watches Auguste settle down beside him, because he has spent the past week keeping angry Akielons and Veretians from each other’s throats, and even his own vaunted indefatigability is beginning to flag. Damen hopes that nothing has burned or toppled itself in his absence.

“The first weeks are the most difficult,” Auguste says, and then, voice changing. “I was worried about him, but you kept your word.”

“Ah, well.” Damen replies, intelligently.

“I know Laurent is very demanding with people he does not like, and he is at the age when he likes to be difficult for the sake of it.” Auguste continues. “In Vere, he would be treated with indulgence and given his head to extravagant extremes. But I think that would be the ruin of his character, and it is to your credit that he has learned some measure of discipline.”

“When he first arrived, I did wonder if you should not have sent your uncle instead. Laurent is very good at finding weaknesses in others.” Damen raises both hands to stave off Auguste’s explanations. “He has exceeded expectations, both in feats of arms and in tempering his tongue. I think the court would miss him now, if he were to leave.” 

Auguste sighs. “I did not relish it either, but my uncle suggested the fostering to improve Laurent’s character -“ Auguste breaks off, struggling for words, “You have to understand, my uncle has always doted on Laurent. He encouraged Laurent to pursue intellectual interests, when father would not care to listen to our tutors’ praises, and they were often at Chastillon together. And then there was the war, when I spent most of my time with my father in the south. So you see,” He spreads his hands helplessly, “I knew Laurent was devastated, unwilling, but I trust my uncle’s judgments utterly, especially when they concern Laurent.” 

Damen thinks that the Prince Councillor had underestimated both his own nephew and the Akielon court’s general hostility towards razor-witted blond Veretians, but he chooses not to bring up the multiple times Prince Laurent has verbally eviscerated a would-be bully, though the challenges to his honour have fallen in number and intensity since Damen had made it clear Prince Laurent was under his protection.

“Laurent enjoys baffling his nay-sayers.” Damen makes it sound non-committal, so that his obvious enjoyment of Laurent’s antics do not bleed through. Jokaste already delights in far too much at his expense and he has no desire to embarrass himself in front of Auguste.

“You speak lightly of saving my brother’s life, not to mention the treaty we crafted with such care.” Auguste looks at him, blue eyes sincere and direct. His hair, the deep golden shade of ripened wheat, fluffs around his head in much the same way Laurent’s does, after a half-day of practice on the sawdust. Damen grins, suddenly, at the sight, glad that Auguste is here and alive.

“I gave my word.” Damen says, after a pause. “He has done all of the hard work since.”

He can still remember the first day he was allowed back into the fighting arena, to find Prince Laurent waiting for him, broadsword in hand. “I’ve been informed that Akielons value strength and valour in the field above all things.” Prince Laurent had said to Damen, chin tilted at a dangerous angle. 

Damen had heard the distinct cadence of Jokaste’s speech, even parroted back to him with Veretian lilts, and Damen had seen, then, how to play the game with Laurent. He had raised an eyebrow, and said, “And to what do I owe this sudden acquiescence?” 

Prince Laurent’s eyes had been blue like the vast glaciers of ice that form in the open fields of the great northern steppes, and he had said, as he had lowered his sword into the ready position, “I dislike owing debts.”

Auguste asks, reluctantly, “And your father…?”

Damen shakes his head, dispelling his memories. He hopes that Kastor’s brief return to Ios will soften his father’s anger, long since subsided into simmering resentment. “Perhaps my brother will persuade him - Kastor was always my staunchest defender.” 

“I, too, am no closer.” Auguste says, “even when I bring the power of the king down to bear.”

“It will keep, for the moment.” It is even true, Damen thinks. The trade routes from Vere have proven most profitable, and Theomedes would no more impoverish his newly established northern kyroi than lead them against Patras, or some mountain stronghold in Vask. The past year has shown both Vere and Akielos that a solution to their enmity exists, if they would both but swallow their hatred for the other. 

“We have made a beginning, at least.” Auguste says finally, as the encampment begins to stir with morning routines, the servants coming awake and preparing for their daily labours.

Yes, Damen hears, from the way the squires argue over the best bales of hay, the sounds of Akielon and Veretian cooks deriding each other’s bread-making skills, the musicians preparing their instruments in a discordant cacophony of scales: this is a beginning.

\- 

The promise of the morning, as Hypermenestra used to remark to Damen, is often quickest spoiled in midday. 

Of course, she had used it as a gentle reminder for him to persevere at tasks he did not excel in - but Damen is certain that the knot of squabbling nobility, each waving some sort of weapon as he furiously insists that he be the one to go first in the tourney, could all stand a lengthy lecture from Hypermenestra.

Damen looks at Auguste, who is mostly ignoring his nobles in favouring of quietly talking to Laurent. Their uncle, prince and councillor both, seems to be laying the odds with Lady Alais of Chasteigne, who had only tolerated an introduction to Damen the day before because Auguste had insisted on it. The knot of Veretians centres itself around Auguste, subconsciously shielding him from the assembled chaos confronting them. 

He can see Kassander in the melee, distinguished by his reddish brown hair, and he imagines that Philokrates and Theodoros are not far from him, having thrown themselves into the scrum enthusiastically as soon as the arguing began. “Yours is an honourable goal,” the Prince Councillor says across both Auguste and Laurent, as Lady Alais looks sourly at Damen over his shoulder. “Perhaps, however, you are feeling discouraged at meeting such opposition?”

“I have always been told that a thing worth doing will inevitably meet with opposition.” Damen replies, feeling his shoulders squaring under the ceremonial cloak he has donned for the opening of the border congress. The Prince Councillor is heavyset, a few strands of grey hair lending a dignified air to his general bearing, and he speaks with the deliberation and gravitas of a true statesman. His red velvet robes, elaborate with embroidery, would look effeminate on a lesser man, but they sit easily on his frame, the Prince Councillor an undeniable counterpoint to the brilliance of his nephews.

“Old wisdom runs in Akielos,” he says, “and we are lucky to have such a supporter in you.”

“As different as we are, there is much to gain from treating each other’s ideas with consideration.” Damen offers.

The Prince Councillor nods, approvingly, and Damen is glad that Auguste has such a bulwark against the unknown conspirators in his kingdom. Behind him, Lady Alais of Chasteigne is speaking to a number of servants, who hurry away again when she flicks a peremptory hand toward the wagons. She turns around, long blonde curls tumbling around her pointed face, eyes the same eerie piercing blue as her royal cousins, and levels a look of pure disbelief at Damen. He smiles sheepishly at her, discomfited even with his long experience of seeing the same doubt in Laurent’s face - for a wild moment, Damen thinks that Lady Alais’s sheer expressive power could level armies. 

The Prince Councillor, skilled as ever, smoothly interposes Laurent between Lady Alais and Damen. “And do my nephews agree, I wonder, about the wisdom of Akielos?”

Auguste rests a companionable arm on Damen’s shoulder, agreeable despite the heat of the midday sun. “This nephew does, uncle.” Damen meets his gaze, and they share a smile in anticipation of whatever inflammatory remark Laurent has indubitably readied for the occasion. 

Laurent’s face, when the Prince Councillor pushes him gently from between Auguste and himself, is white as chalk, save for two spots of high colour on his cheeks. Damen hears the whispering of Lady Alais’s gown from his periphery, and he takes two steps towards Laurent, movements involuntary with the need to protect him. 

Damen collides with Lady Alais, and raises both arms around her to prevent overbalancing. Far from being grateful that he has prevented them both from tumbling into the scrum of men at their backs, Lady Alais delivers a sound stomp to Damen’s instep, and propels herself to kneel on the grass in front of Laurent, with nary a care to her white linen gown.

“It’s the sun, isn’t it?” She says, lily white hands fluttering around Laurent’s forehead, cheeks, and neck like a particularly determined pair of turtledoves. “Come, cousin,” she turns to Auguste, “see how flushed he is!”

The circle around Laurent closes as Damen watches, his family clustering around him in worry, united and oblivious to the world. Damen’s chest clenches, the pressure within easing at the sight of Laurent allowing himself to be cosseted like the spoiled child he deserves to be, much beloved. Damen remembers Auguste’s worry about the Veretian court ruining Laurent’s character, but the sullen hostility of the Akielon court has honed Laurent’s intelligence into a sly, dangerous weapon, and his careless words are now tightly under the control of a discipline Damen himself has a hand in forging. 

In this gathering of family, Auguste and Alais mirror images of each other, crouched over Laurent, and his uncle standing guard, his eyes sharp as a hawk’s, Damen sees what the treaty has taken from Laurent’s life, the happiness and security signed away for the vague promise of peace between fractious, age-old enemies.

He turns, and beckons at the Veretian heralds straggling at the edges of the field, determined to do this one thing for Laurent. If Damen is to take him from his family at the end of this month and spirit him south again, he will wrestle progress from the hands of the delegations themselves, so Laurent’s sacrifice is worth it. 

Galenos of Aegina approaches him, leaning not at all on his eagle-headed cane. He uses it to gesture at the Veretian and Akielon nobles, some of whom are collapsed into the grass, though a persistent few are still punching at anyone they can reach. “Leaving you to the hard labour whilst they stand around moaning about the sun, eh?” Galenos says, not bothering to keep his voice down.

Wincing, Damen looks at where the Prince Councillor is steering a docile Laurent back to the tents. His stomach sinks when Lady Alais stands, her temper almost a physical presence behind her. “Ah, thank you for your concern, kyros, but as a matter of fact Prince Laurent is feeling ill. We were only - concerned.”

Damen flinches, minutely, when Galenos snorts, beard waggling as his sneer becomes more pronounced. “Aye, it goes to show that all the good Akielon training in the world can’t change a snivelling puppy into a man.”

Damen is saved from replying when the heralds walk toward him, hands empty of standards or arms, followed closely by about twenty servants, each carrying a chair or a table. “You, and you,” Damen says, gesturing at the men to follow him to the main tent. They fall into step beside him, nervously skirting their way around the exhausted men littering the field. “Draw up a list of fighters from Vere, ranking them by skill,” Damen commands, untying paper from their bundles.

“A list, my lord prince?” One of them asks, startled, from the expression on his face, by Damen’s fluid use of Veretian. 

“Yes, lists.” Damen says grimly. “If they want a fight so badly, they can damn well be civilized about it.”

He pulls a sheaf of papers toward himself, and resolutely ignores the sounds of Galenos wheezing with incredulity as Lady Alais fully demonstrates her kinship to Laurent, in a verbal sally that is almost as piquant as it is devastating.

-

Four days later, Auguste pulls his horse up against Damen’s, both of them exhausted at the end of a long and punishing day of display fights. “I’m not sure that your idea is the best after all, Damianos.” Auguste says, tossing his helm away and shaking his head like a dog in water. A drop or two of far-flung sweat land on Damen’s face, and he makes a face, wiping them away. Auguste says, his cheer belying his words, “I would have preferred to sit and watch my court make imbeciles out of themselves, it is refreshing to shift the attention on someone else for once.”

“What, and miss giving your Lady Alais a chance to put me down?” Damen mimics Alais’s favourite expression, eyes intent, lips pursed, and tries his best to imitate Laurent’s haughty tones. “Heaven forbid.” 

Auguste laughs. “She’s not anyone’s, least of all mine. And believe me,” he continues, “if Alais truly disliked you, you would be facedown in the mud like your friend Theodoros.”

Damen dismounts and hands his horse to a hostler. “Theodoros is an able swordsman, but liable to be distracted on the field. I know his father despairs of him; this was an apt lesson, and Philokrates will tell him so.” 

Auguste, already shedding his gauntlets from the doorway of the Veretian royal tent, nods when the hostlers look questioning at Damen’s presence. “I noticed his spear-work - Henri of Fortaine was fortunate not to have faced him in a real melee.”

“I didn’t think it wise to hold anything with too much freedom; one of mine might kill one of yours, and then all our care would be wasted.” Damen confesses, stepping into the tent after Auguste. 

“They will not bear a grudge that a Veretian won?” Auguste asks, curious.

Damen grins. “We have more than retrieved our honours in other areas. And I think they have devoted themselves to a significant betting pool for our fight, at the end of the month.” 

The side of Auguste’s mouth quirks up, and he quips lightly. “Alais would never let me hear the end of it, if I lost.” 

“You place a high store in the Lady Alais’ opinions.” Damen teases, aware that their marriage is all but considered a settled matter in Vere. 

Auguste takes a drink from a silver goblet and says, with exaggerated dread, “She is going to make my life a misery.” He smiles, suddenly predatory, and Damen, sunk deep into a plush Veretian chair, feels a rush of apprehension.

“I hear from Laurent that you are very close to Lady Jokaste yourself,” Auguste says, eyes dancing. “The Vaskian emissary seemed very taken with her. ‘Lashes long like a cow’s’ were the exact words used, I think.”

Damen groans, knowing that Laurent has probably told him of what followed after. “Did she really offer to take you back to Vask and let you have your pick of Vaskian women?” He buries his face in his hands, but Auguste goes on speaking, merciless and mirthful, “I wish I had been there to see the look on your father’s face when she pronounced that you are of a size to give strong daughters to Vask.”

“Does it not repulse you, the idea of bastardry?” Damen asks, remembering Laurent’s smirk when Halvik’s strident tones had traveled through the banquet hall.

Auguste pauses, thoughtfully. “Akielons do not have the same notions we do, and Kastor’s a good enough sort. My uncle has done his best to make him feel welcome in Arles, and the court falls in behind him tidily enough that they would not risk his wrath and mine combined over the matter of Kastor’s ancestry. And his mother is nobly-born, which helps matters somewhat.”

“Damen?” Auguste prompts, and Damen shakes off his thoughts like a hive of persistent bees.

“I have always felt blessed to have a brother in Kastor,” Damen confesses, “It gives me relief that he is treated on the basis of his ability, rather than any arbitrary measures. He is a man grown, and able to defend himself, but I feel better, all the same.”

Auguste smiles. “It is the way of older brothers to shield the younger ones from worry.” He says, “I forget that you are six years my junior, sometimes, and fall into speaking with you as I would with my uncle or my councillors.” Damen realizes that he has long adopted the habit of thinking of Auguste as a member of his own family, a brother in arms who had laid his life down for him, and for whom Damen would do the same.

“And in the tradition of older brothers everywhere,” Auguste continues, “I claim the right to question you about Lady Jokaste.”

Damen leans back in his chair, legs stretched out in front of him, and says, “Wouldn’t you rather hear of how Philokrates has assiduously paid court to Laurent?”

Auguste breathes, “No! The same man who threatened to black Laurent’s eye?”

“I don’t know the details,” Damen admits, “Jokaste could tell you the whole, but Philokrates has been dogging Laurent’s steps since they came back from a tour of Sicyon. The court is baffled to a man, and no one knows how to react to the sight of Philokrates, who is built on rather bearish lines, solicitously attending to Laurent. He is too young, of course, or the rumours would be salacious as well as plentiful.”

“Laurent has been full of tales about you,” Auguste says, chin resting on steepled fingers, “But he hasn’t breathed a word of Philokrates.”

“It is nothing sinister,” Damen hastens to reassure Auguste, silently wondering just what Laurent has seen fit to tell his brother, “just amusing, and a likely presage of Laurent’s appeal when he grows into himself. The ladies universally admire his grace of bearing, you know, and some have even begun to affect brighter colours in imitation.”

“Meanwhile,” Auguste muses, “Your brother has been busy developing irrigation techniques for the mountainous regions of Vere. Truly, I am in your debt.”

“Well,” Damen says, stalling and feeling strangely defensive of Laurent, “he doesn’t like to be seen doing things, and my father is always ready with accusations, but his help has been instrumental in the revision of the taxation system. Laurent is more intellectual than many of my men would like to appear, and it isolates him, but I value his help.”

“I see that we are doomed to lay praise at Laurent’s and Kastor’s feet until we are exhausted,” Auguste notes drily, and continues, “You will need an emissary to Vask, at least. They only deal with women in matters of import: it should be someone you trust.”

“Laurent suggested Jokaste, actually.” Damen offers, “She enjoys the machinations of power and has the understanding to excel.”

Auguste fixes his eyes on Damen. “Those do not sound like the words of an amorous young man speaking of his beloved.” 

Despite his light tone, Damen knows Auguste is seriously concerned. “She is - ah,” Damen shrugs uncomfortably. “Jokaste is interested in power first, and people second. I - she is beautiful, I don’t deny it, but I would not be happy, I think, knowing if she was with me for my position.”

Auguste nods. “It is the same reason I chose Alais, when the council presented me with several eligible noblewomen.”

“In a way,” Damen begins, trying to articulate his feelings, “I made the choice to stay away because of Laurent. He showed me how Jokaste behaved, when she was around someone she genuinely liked.”

Auguste frowns. “I’m sure she enjoys her time in your presence.”

“Oh no,” Damen says, “I know she takes great pleasure in needling me. But before Laurent arrived she was deferential, coy, beautiful in an unattainable way. I knew she had a mind behind her face, but it was not until Laurent arrived that I saw her acting spontaneously, out a sincere desire to do so.” Damen takes a slow drink of Veretian wine, and continues. “I do not blame her for seeking favour, but I have felt what it is like to be her friend, and I am loathe to give it up.”

“It is not permitted, you know, to be alone in the presence of a woman, and it is never the same with a chaperone present.” Auguste says, half-envious.

“Well,” Damen says, trying for a lighthearted turn to their conversation, “Lady Alais seems to have no trouble communicating her feelings to everyone within hearing range.”

“She only behaves so in public,” Auguste says, “I suspect her mind works much the same as Laurent’s, with a sort of unthinking fierceness as cover.”

“On balance, it is probably a good thing, to be cautious.” Damen does not speak of the habitual treachery of Vere, not when Auguste is sitting in front of him, but the thought of a knife in the back is forefront on his mind.

“Yes,” Auguste agrees. “In the hearts of men, the power of a king can do but little.”

“Perhaps,” Damen says, as he thinks back to the circuitous way Laurent and Jokaste had joined forces to lay a trap for the man who sought to force Jokaste into marriage. “Perhaps the problem is that you are using the power of a king.”

Auguste puts down his goblet carefully. “What do you mean?” But the light of comprehension is dawning in his eyes, and he pulls a piece of paper and ink closer to him even as Damen continues thinking aloud.

“What would have happened, at Marlas, if you had died? Who stood to gain the most?” 

“Laurent would inherit,” Auguste says, slowly, “but he is young, and a regency would have been established for him until he gained his majority.”

Damen nods, putting aside the thought of Auguste dead on the field, Laurent bereft, tries to be ruthless as their enemy must be. “And if your uncle was also dead, and no one could protect Laurent - who would be regent then?“

“The council would step in until he turned twenty-one.” Auguste says, “My cousins of Chasteigne have royal blood, but they are not interested in politics, as a rule, and I think the council would balk at giving power, however temporary, to them.”

“Councillor Guion holds the border at Fortaine, does he not?” Damen asks. 

Auguste finishes drawing the layout of the field that day at Marlas, and begins to mark formations and troops, “Yes, and Audin owns the richest port in Vere. Herode is too old, I think, to do much plotting, and Jeurre and Chelaut have been with my father since boyhood, they would not have betrayed him.” 

“So it is Guion or Audin, then.” Damen says, his horror growing when he realizes that they are both in Arles to administer to the kingdom while Auguste and the royal family are at the border.

Auguste looks at him, eyes blue and fathomless like the deeps off the coast of Mellos, and says, “It could be both.” 

\- 

On the very last day of the congress, Damen and Auguste host a feast celebrating the first year since signing the treaty. Damen can see, as each course is carried out to the tables, that Akielos and Vere are trying to outdo each other in extravagance even in this little thing, and resigns himself to another night of pulling drunk people apart before they manage to kill each other, or - and Damen knows this is the far more likely possibility - a dignitary would trip over an errant tree root, breaking both his own and someone else’s neck, and then a war would erupt.

When Damen pushes away from the table, eyes already on a brewing quarrel between Alais of Chasteigne and Galenos of Aegina, Philokrates hands him a large flask, and shoves Damen between the shoulders with a smile. 

“Go on, my lord prince.” Philokrates says. “You’ve earned it. Stop fretting like a mother bear with newly-born cubs; we shall manage without you.”

Damen does not need further urging, though he does feel the pricklings of guilt at leaving Philokrates to deal with a crowd of exuberantly drunk people. “If you need me, I will be in my tent.”

Philokrates bares all his teeth in a grin. “The Veretians will find us a difficult group to outdrink, prince. Go rest, we can’t have our valiant war leader falling off his horse on the way home.”

Later, deep into the night, Damen wakes from his doze when the flap of his tent opens, letting in drafts of cooler air. Laurent waves a flagon of water mockingly when he sees that Damen is awake. “Philokrates sent me. He seemed concerned about you for some reason, even after I assured him that you would never succumb to such mundane weaknesses as wine-sickness.” 

Damen is quiet, still a little dizzy from the liquor in Philokrates’ flask, richly smoky on his tongue. Laurent’s skin is burnished in the candlelight of his tent, lips red and parted just a little in a half-smile. For a moment he looks older than his fourteen years, lean with muscle and eyes hooded with intent. 

“The tourney was not such a bad idea, after all.” Damen says, to dispel the image in front of his eyes and framing it as an inquiry into the rest of the night. He hopes the silence he hears means that everyone has staggered back into their own tents and that no murder has been done this night.

Laurent, laying out silver cups for the water, snorts. “Possibly you were not looking when Galenos of Aegina threw an entire chicken carcass at Alais’ head.”

Awash in the goodwill from a cask of well-brewed Akielon wine, Damen leans further into his impossibly plush bed. “Your sister-to-be is a prickly one, that is certain.”

Laurent waves a languid hand in the air, dismissive. “Please. She was obviously sizing you up for consumption. Or possibly murder, I am not certain.” For a moment, Damen is certain the wine is making him hear things.

“I thought you liked her?” Damen asks.

“Oh, I do,” Laurent says, “She’s the only woman at that vipers’ nest of a court I’d trust with my brother, but she looked at you like a housecat waiting to pounce on a prize rat - the only question that remains is if she was desirous of keeping you for herself or wanted to lay your corpse at Auguste’s feet.”

Damen says, despite himself, “I wouldn’t go that far.”

“It’s true, you haven’t the imagination.” Laurent says, blinking up at him impishly, all boyish mischief. 

Damen huffs, and then peers at the water clock. “You should go sleep, if you wish to stay upright in the saddle tomorrow.”

Laurent stretches out on the floor, cat-like himself, and contrary. “But I promised Jokaste I’d keep an eye on your manly virtue, and you keep telling me that a man should not break his word.” 

He reflects a little, and then says, “I can always tie myself to the saddle.”

“Jokaste doesn’t need you to defend her honour.” Damen begins to smile, reminded of something Philokrates had hissed in his ear before he’d left Ios. “If you are not careful, however, the court gossips will have you betrothed to her before the year is out.”

Laurent raises both hands in the air, studying the outline of his fingers in the candlelight with feigned nonchalance, “Your court gossips would like that, wouldn’t they, the stripling Veretian stealing the Akielon prince’s beloved out from under his nose? Or do you think they’d have us in bed and Jokaste only a token passed between us?”

“Fortunately,” Damen says, “It is not a topic they are likely to contemplate, as neither Jokaste nor I are in the habit of coupling with children.”

Laurent watches him with bright eyes, a small smile on his face. “I am fourteen, you know, and considered something of a beauty.”

“You are an impertinent brat,” Damen says, tossing a candied raisin in Laurent’s general direction to stave off his own discomfort at Laurent’s sudden precocity. “Eat your candy and go to bed.”

“Is it different?” Laurent asks suddenly, ignoring Damen’s second volley, a piece of sweetened almond paste cunningly fashioned in the shape of the Akielon lion crest. “With a woman, I mean?”

Flatfooted and clumsy with surprise, Damen says, “It is different with everybody.”

“Oh,” Laurent looks smaller and alone, somehow, sitting on the simply dyed carpet, blond hair fanning out from under his coronet, and Damen is reminded of the day he first met Laurent, standing isolated and defiant in scarlet robes that ill-suited him. 

“Come here,” Damen says, unable to stand the suddenly heavy air inside his tent. “Show me how you beat Nikandros in ten moves.”

Laurent sounds dubious as he says, still recumbent on the floor, “He wasn’t playing me seriously.” 

Damen pulls out the board, and begins setting the pieces down, tossing aside the blue blankets on his bed. “Then come see if you can beat me.” 

Laurent scrambles to his feet, a martial gleam appearing in his eyes. The grin Damen gives in return is feral, and not entirely friendly.


	3. Chapter 3

Damen stares down at the letter in his hands, Jokaste and Philokrates jostling him in an attempt to read over his shoulder. He lets the paper roll itself shut, and turns to look at them. 

“Not a word to Laurent,” Damen commands, “until I’ve spoken to him.”

Jokaste gives him a shrewd once-over, and then snatches the paper out of his hands. Damen, striding away, hears Philokrates’ incredulous ‘What?’ drown out Jokaste’s thoughtful hum. 

He knocks on the doorway and walks into Laurent’s quarters when Erasmus comes to open the three-paneled door. Damen spares a nod for the servants, who all make obeisances, but his attention is on Laurent, and the sheets of paper in his hands. 

“So you’ve heard,” Laurent says, not bothering to look up from his desk. 

Damen’s first impetuous surge of concern has subsided, and he hesitates, now wondering how to approach a newly pricklesome Laurent, who has taken to behaving with perfect civility to everyone else but reserving his fits of temper for Damen. Of course, for Laurent, a fit of temper means scathing remarks and icy tolerance that barely edges on polite, but Damen has grown used to weathering his moods. Even in his worst moments, Laurent never means to truly wound, and Damen has grown fond enough of Laurent that he will give him the latitude.

“Before you spout platitudes, as you are wont, Damen,” Laurent begins, tone acid, but he is using the diminutive, and so Damen loosens his shoulders and listens to the undercurrents of the words and not the specifics. “There are two possibilities.” Laurent holds up two fingers, still avoiding eye contact with Damen, “One, that Alais has been compromised, in one way or another, and is being forced to marry a lesser son of Fortaine. Two, that the lord of Fortaine has something Auguste needs so badly that he is willing to barter my cousin for it.”

Baffled, Damen rereads the letter in his own head. “But Auguste’s letter said Alais had fallen in love and -“

Laurent interrupts him. “There is a story that everyone in my family knows: when she was eight, Alais broke her arm falling out of a cherry tree in the de Chasteigne orchards, because Auguste was ill and wished for a pie. She may not express devotion in the sentiment that most ladies choose to adopt, but Auguste is family, and she would never leave him, not even for the love of Henri, son of Guion.”

Damen can remember nothing of gentler emotions in Lady Alais’ fox-like face, all sharp wit and narrow-eyed fury, her curls the in-between shade of Auguste’s ripe wheat and Laurent’s gilded silver. Even her eyes, possessed of a lightness striking in and of themselves, had never warmed in the month that Damen had known her.

She had cornered him on the first day of the border congress, before Damen had even had a proper chance to dismount from his horse and oversee the arranging of supplies and tents. She was a slight thing, barely taller than the shoulders of his horse, and yet, as she stared up at him, Damen had felt a kind of wolfish attention, predatory, followed by swift recognition of those icy blue eyes. Lady Alais had ignored his horse’s attempts to shy away, and then had walked off to Laurent’s tent, all in plain view of the Akielon delegation. Damen recalls an acute sense of relief that she had decided against speaking to him. Her expression had not suggested blessings would be forthcoming. 

“Is it possible that they have quarrelled?” Damen feels compelled to ask, as Lady Alais’ temperament does not strike him as ideal, even for a level-headed man like Auguste. 

Laurent gives him a withering look, one he must have learned from her. “Even with your very apparent disobedience of your father’s wishes, does he cast you aside and take up the son of Galenos as his heir? Alais knows her duty to our family. My brother may believe whatever Alais has told him, but she would never leave him unprotected.”

Damen studies Laurent while he carefully folds the letter and stores it away. “Would it be easier to tell me you’re worried?” Damen places a hand on Laurent’s back, beneath one shoulder blade, aware that the muscles have locked together, the tension coinciding with his words. “Come spar with me, and we’ll hash out how to tell my father that you’re coming north too.” He doesn’t say, come with me, and I will help you get to the bottom of this, return your cousin to you unharmed, because Laurent cannot yet accept that they are friends.

He feels it, the moment when the pent-up strain dissipates, a strange sort of expectancy in its place. Laurent looks up and then away again, quick as lightning flashes, “Do you think he will allow it?”

“Lady Hypermenestra will smooth the way.” Damen assures him, sanguine about his own chances with her forbearance. “Just don’t forget to pack your coronet.”

-

Damen finds Hypermenestra and Jokaste deep in discussion in the antechamber outside his father’s quarters, piles of Jokaste’s dark curls atop her head further accentuating her height. Hypermenestra peers out from behind Jokaste’s shoulder and smiles at Damen, fine lines radiating out from the corners of her eyes.

“Do you know,” Hypermenestra says playfully, “I had a suspicion you would show up. Come to beg a favour from me, Damen?”

“I have not been Damen to you since the year I turned thirteen,” Damen remarks, amused. Hypermenestra is younger than his father, and yet of late she has turned nostalgic of her youth, when Damen was still a stripling boy her height, and loved to run after her in the hallways, for she always hid him from his wrathful tutors. 

“You were a dreadful child, always underfoot and asking the impossible of everyone.” Hypermenestra says, as if she had not stayed by his bedside to nurse him in the weeks and months after his accident. Kastor had come too, gray-faced with contrition, that he had engaged Damen in a fight with true steel, even in practice.

“We worried over you constantly, your father and I,” Hypermenestra says, fingers tracing gently along Damen’s brow, always the feature that distinguished him as Theomedes’ son. “You have such a kind heart and no defense against true malice.”

“Well,” Damen says, folding her hand in his own, bringing it to his lips in a burst of spontaneous affection, “that is what I have you and Jokaste for. And Kastor too, when he returns from Vere.”

Hypermenestra’s smile is familiar, from the stories she used to tell Damen of his mother Egeria. “A king should have his own judgment in these things.” 

Two years ago Damen would have agreed with her, and yet, today, he says, “A king leads, but he trusts to his choice of advisors, who are often wiser.” He includes Jokaste in this statement, changing his seat on the bench so that he faces her as well as Hypermenestra.

Lest Damen forget the reason he ventured into his father’s chambers at all, he sighs and looks into Hypermenestra’s eyes. “Since Jokaste has already told you of our correspondence from Vere, tell me, do you think father will relent?”

Hypermenestra pauses, long enough that Damen can feel his scalp prickling with apprehension. “I cannot always be the mediator when you two quarrel. Come and talk to Theomedes yourself.” Rising, she nods to Jokaste in dismissal, and leads Damen into the next room.

She does not stop when they reach the king’s study, maps and books still littering the large, oak-hewn table in the middle, and Damen wonders at his father’s uncharacteristic idleness, both in leaving the table cluttered and in listening to the kithara when he would usually be poring over reports from his kyroi.

Hypermenestra purses her lips, and beckons Damen onward, when he would have stopped at the doorway to his father’s bedchamber. One of his father’s slaves, Aden, who had trained with the ill-fated Iphegin, is sitting near the window, kithara still in hand as he moves into a practiced prostration. 

Damen’s father is asleep. The room, starkly and sparingly decorated, is all the more motionless with him at the centre.

“My lady, my lord prince, the king did not wish to worry you. His majesty only had a light headache, he said.” Aden’s voice, modulated through years of training, is deferential enough that Damen allows his laxity to pass unpunished, though Hypermenestra casts a sharp look in his direction. While Hypermenestra reprimands Aden, exercising her noted firm but light touch in governing the palace staff, Damen stands near his father’s bed, unsure of his place.

Theomedes looks well, for all the world as if he is ten years younger, none of the lines of age on his sleeping face, beard still strong and black. He had liked to recount stories of Damen as an infant to the court at feasts, to his generals during the slack days of war when fighting was a distant menace, to Damen himself: baby Damen, grip already strong, had one day seized his father’s beard in stubby fingers and refused to let go. Theomedes had held him on his lap in the audience chamber, daring his courtiers to comment, Damen silent and rapt at each petition. At the end of the afternoon, Damen, hearing the trumpet salute to the king, had waved his arms and cried ‘Pata!’ in glee.

It had been uncomplicated and easy between them, Damen following where his father had led, certain in his faith that Theomedes could do no wrong. Damen remembers that certainty at Marlas, half-kneeling in obeisance to his king. “Father,” he had said, “I can beat him.”

His father had raised a hand to rest at the top of his head, heavy and assured, his dark eyes fierce with a strange shining pride. 

“Then go, my son,” Theomedes had said, the full weight of his authority behind his words, “and bring me victory.” 

But Damen hadn’t returned, not as the proud prince of Akielos who would bring glory home in terms his country would understand. For his father, Damen had probably never stepped off the field at Marlas, instead dying under the Veretian sunburst banner; Theomedes’ son came back a day later with a treaty in hand, but he was already a stranger, at best a fool and worst, a traitorous coward. 

A soft touch at his elbow brings Damen back to himself, and he sees Hypermenestra regarding him, a wry twist of her mouth betraying her usual calm. 

“Save me from headstrong men.” She mutters, and gives Damen a small push. Years of training allow Damen to catch his balance again, only rocking a little on his feet. He turns, ready to protest, ready to give forth a passel of excuses for leaving, when Theomedes opens one eye, rumbling, “Still trying to wriggle your way out of disagreements, I see.”

Hypermenestra coughs to cover her laugh, the hypocrite, and says, louder, “My king.”

“Father,” Damen says, because he has to fill the silence, and habit is better than nothing. And then, irresistibly, “A war is _not_ a disagreement.”

At first Damen is alarmed at the wheezing sounds his father makes, and then realizes that Theomedes is, against all expectations, laughing at Damen. He makes a face at his father, only daring to because Theomedes has closed both eyes again. 

Hypermenestra says, soothing and equable, “It may be beneath the dignity of a king to be ill, but at least call for a proper physician so you can sulk in comfort.”

“Kings do not sulk, Nessa.” Theomedes says immediately, a trace of his usual fire in his manner, before he subsides again. 

Servants enter, carrying braziers and extra bedding. One of them stops and murmurs in Hypermenestra’s ear, while another quietly sets two chairs close to the head of the bed. Damen nods his thanks, and takes a steamed towel from Oneira, applying it to Theomedes’ forehead. Damen’s father sighs in relief. 

For a few instants the room is busy with slaves and servants, but when they have settled everything they melt away through the doors and archways, with only Hypermenestra and Damen remaining. Aden lingers, perhaps to continue playing the kithara, but Damen sees Hypermenestra raising an eyebrow at him, and he makes a parting obeisance with more haste than refinement. 

Theomedes says, propped up against the numerous pillows that now litter his bed, “Don’t you have better things to do than worry over the creaking and aches of an old man?”

Accustomed to irascible jabs from Laurent, Damen replies without thinking, “I think I can bear leaving someone else to listen to barons moaning about early winter winds for one day.”

“Today they moan about early winter winds, but tomorrow the kyroi and their barons may speak of finding a new king, one more accommodating to their needs.” Theomedes lectures. 

“It has not happened since King Euandros’ time.” Damen argues. “He lost Delpha, and would have been overthrown, had it not been for his faithful generals. We have Delpha now, and the northern kyroi are loyal. Galenos of Aegina may mutter, but he is no malcontent. Kesus and Thrace would not dare, sandwiched as they are, between the great desert and royal lands. We are as safe as we have ever been, father.”

“Well!” Theomedes grunts. “You’ve put a lot of thought into this, seemingly.”

“What your father is trying to get out of saying,” Hypermenestra adds, quellingly, “is that he worries needlessly about your eventual kingship.”

“I have a right to worry, don’t I?” Theomedes says, “You’re mother-soft, and Damianos takes after you overmuch. Fact is,” he continues, turning to Damen, “when you have a fox at bay, you don’t lure it home with bits of meat.”

Damen sighs, as his father hurls himself into yet another lecture to the theme of ‘don’t trust the Veretians’. “Father, King Auguste has just sent official invitations to Patras and Vask; I think he intends a diplomatic marriage. I’m taking a delegation south as soon as one can be put together.”

Hypermenestra smoothes the bedding, eyes distant, “I think Jokaste, as a matter of form, the eldest of Pherenike’s daughters, and perhaps Lady Heiro? The likelihood of Auguste picking an Akielon noblewoman is slim, after the treaty, but we should show willingness. As for gifts, the new crop of palace slaves are promising - twenty should be kingly enough, even for the Veretian tendency to excess.”

“Why not send someone else?” Theomedes demands. “Do you take joy in knowing the Veretians laugh behind your back and call you a giant animal? They know you are weak and they will take everything they can, until you have nothing left.”

It is nothing but a repetition of what Damen has had to contend with since he had come home, from his father, from Nikandros, from Galenos, even from Laurent himself, though the latter likes to remind Damen the insults are true and for his own good. 

“Before I went into battle, Kastor asked me if thought our sons and grandsons would fight the same battles we do, to right King Euandros’ losses. He told me that war begets war, and if we did not take steps, it would be a matter of time before we meet the Veretians in battle again.” Hypermenestra looks surprised, then deeply thoughtful, but Damen has been waiting to say this to his father since he rode back on his horse with a treaty in his hands, and he does not stop now to hear her judgment. “I am not afraid of battle, but Kastor is right - there is a better way to keep Delpha than to prepare for war with Vere for as long as either of our kingdoms last. And I think our people deserve better.”

His entreaty falls into silence, and Damen sees even Hypermenestra is reluctant to speak.

“Auguste is a good man - he saved my life on the field, and we have each other’s trust. We have a chance to build something that will last beyond a generation, something that will make Akielos and Vere both stronger.”

“And if it fails?” Theomedes asks, tone grudging under Hypermenestra’s stern gaze. 

Damen smiles at Hypermenestra gratefully. “If it fails, Akielos is still strong in arms, and we know that much more about Vere’s weaknesses.”

Theomedes gives a harrumph of displeasure. “You always were a stubborn child.”

“I seem to recall something involving an olive tree, a herd of goats, and Egeria’s dowry.” Hypermenestra says drily. Damen doesn’t know the incident she refers to, but the memory of it sends Theomedes off into a series of chuckles. 

“You give your blessing, then?” Theomedes inquires, after he has stopped laughing. Damen knows that his father has always valued Hypermenestra’s intelligence, but this is unprecedented latitude, even for a woman he could almost call mother. “I am grown old,” Theomedes says, fixing Damen with a gimlet eye, “and it is time you learned more about the kingdom than those poxy tax laws.”

Hypermenestra comes to his rescue. “What your father means to say, is that taxes and harvests are only a part of what a king may need to learn in order to govern. I had shown talent in my youth, and when the old master of whispers chose amongst his students, I became his successor.” She smiles at Damen, self-assured and tranquil as always, “I don’t expect you to learn the craft, you haven’t much aptitude.”

“We did consider training Kastor.” Theomedes continues for her, one hand absently clasped with hers, his seeking gesture so natural that neither of them look down any more. “He has the right turn of mind, and you were a strong baby from the first, likely to survive and inherit.”

“Kastor may have the right turn of mind, but he is far too impatient to succeed. I’m afraid I must look elsewhere.” Damen thinks of the times he’s found Hypermenestra and Jokaste together, and wonders if she will have a candidate sooner than she expects. “At present, however, there is no word that Vere intends harm - they have been rather inwardly focused of late.”

“Surely you’ve heard more than that?” Damen asks, wanting to know if he and Auguste are walking blind into a nest of conspiracy. 

Hypermenestra shakes her head. “The nature of my work means I must sift through a thousand hints, each with its own insinuations, for an iota of truth that can be acted upon. There are too many conflicting accounts, and our sources in Vere have never been trustworthy to begin with. I can tell you nothing that you do not already know: trust little, and assume even less.”

Theomedes says, “There’s no need to pamper the boy, Nessa, Damen knows what he is about.”

Hypermenestra says. “It is in part my fault, that we didn’t tell you this sooner. It was never the right time. I may not have your father’s way with words, Damen, but I worry all the same.”

“I will keep council for myself.” Damen says, shaken by the thoughts churning in his head: Theomedes’ tacit vote of confidence, Hypermenestra’s anxiety, both of them posed in opposition to their usual stances; the threats of Guion and Arran looming on the other side of the border. “I may not have Kastor’s turn of mind, but statecraft is not yet beyond me.”

\- 

Arles is a riot of bright colours and silks, the palace thrown open to welcome visitors from Akielos, Vask, and Patras alike. Though the crowds remain sullenly silent when Damen rides through the main streets with his lion-headed banner, Laurent’s patrician profile, combined with the golden sunburst banner of the royal family, draw the adoration of the commons. The result is a rather comical wave of cheering on Laurent’s appearance that immediately mixes with the derision given Damen, who heads the Akielon delegation as is his due.

Damen is welcomed into the palace gates proper with a tripled fanfare, and when he turns his head to look at Laurent, he sees a small smile lurking about the corners of Laurent’s mouth. Damen had spent most of his time aboard the ship in the throes of vile illness, one that spared both Jokaste and Laurent, who had assumed control of the journey. Even when the party had made landing at Marches, one of Laurent’s own holdings, they had only stopped long enough for provisions and resupply before Laurent had hurried them onwards. 

While Damen had waved off the men at arms, stridently assuring everyone that he could, in fact, mount a horse unassisted even after two weeks at sea, Jokaste had gazed at the graceful white stone arches of Marches' castle bridges. Laurent had joined her, his own mare quiescent and docile under him, and they had talked of the history in the rounded towers and tall lines rising above them, the alluring reflections it cast in the blue-green water. Damen, in no mood to be entertained by tales of a Veretian queen’s mistress so powerful she herself had been queen in all but name, had heaved himself laboriously into the saddle and ridden pointedly out of the elaborate ordered gardens that passed for grounds in Vere.

Here, as they pass through the arched gates, Laurent’s feverish headlong dash finally at an end, Damen allows himself a breath. He will allow himself this one moment of rest, before the strain of plotting and maneuvering descends again.

The Prince Councillor stands in the middle of the courtyard, solid and dignified amidst the scurrying of the household around them. He is dressed in rich maroons and browns, with a thin golden coronet and the ever-present embroidery of Veretian nobility on every handspan of his clothes. “I bid you welcome to Arles, your highness, ladies.” He spares an especially brilliant smile for Laurent. “How you have grown, nephew.” 

Damen can feel Laurent stiffening beside him, perhaps discomfited by the open show of affection in front of so many. He carefully does not help Laurent off his horse, choosing instead to see to Lady Heiro and Lady Berenike. 

When Damen turns, the Prince Councillor is examining Laurent’s mare, hands deft around her soft mouth. “She is a fine mount,” he says, approving. 

Laurent replies, tone arch, “You gave me my first horse and helped train him. I would be remiss if I were to forget the lessons I learned at your knee.”

The Prince Councillor rests a paternal hand on Laurent’s shoulder. “It gladdens my heart to hear that you remember of our time together. Hunting at Chastillon is quite nostalgic these days, when I see shadows of you around every corner.”

“I’m afraid I am grown too tall for the secret passages at Chastillon, uncle.” Laurent says, somehow coy in a crowd of servants and travel-weary Akielons.

“It’s almost a shame,” the Prince Councillor muses, “when you were such a beautiful boy.”

Damen, aware of an unusual tension growing between uncle and nephew, begins to seek some diversion, perhaps a quip about how Laurent is still a boy, but the words sit uneasily, especially after Laurent and Jokaste had taken charge of the delegation, of Damen himself, during the weeks on the road. 

Rescue comes from an unusual quarter, in the form of Lady Alais mid-temper, icily magnificent in sky blue silk. “Uncle,” she calls peremptorily, “We shouldn’t keep Lolo out in the winter cold.”

Laurent flushes, perhaps embarrassed by her strident tones, as well as the affectionate diminutive she uses in place of his name - Damen tries to suppress a snort, but his horse’s movements give him away, and Laurent looks back to glare at him before changing his expression to an accommodating smile and reaching out to clasp hands with his cousin.

Alais sweeps by the Akielon contingent without a glance, drawling Veretian in liquid consonants at a speed Damen cannot follow. He catches ‘Henri’, and ‘dinner’, before they are swallowed up by contingent of servants. The Prince Councillor, unflappable, gestures grandly to the golden gates of the central palace, columns stretching three stories high.

“So that was the Lady Alais of Chasteigne,” Jokaste says into Damen’s ear, speculative. 

“I would say that she is usually friendlier, but I cannot, sadly, tell a lie.” Damen replies, trying not to look as if he is searching for Auguste in the flashes of golden hair that cross the courtyard.

“I think we arrived a day earlier than expected,” Jokaste says, nodding at the hostlers and porters as they take the burden of the Akielon wagons. 

The Prince Councillor hears this, and turns to smile at her. “Indeed, my lady, but you are long awaited. The steward has placed you both in rooms close to his majesty’s and Laurent’s, in honour of our alliance. In my youth, these suites housed King Aleron and myself - but of course he was not king yet, and we were only two princes, carefree and indolent.”

Jokaste smiles back, and asks, impish, “Forgive me for speaking frankly, but I had assumed that King Auguste was to marry his cousin. Are these diplomatic negotiations anything beyond a formality?” Damen feels her fingers pinch the inside of his arm when he starts, because Jokaste has never been frank for a moment in her entire life, and she had read Auguste’s letter as well as his formal invitation.

“Ah,” the Prince Councillor stops to consider her question, “You are not quite what I expected, my lady. Your reputation marks you as a woman who keeps her own counsel.”

“In some matters,” Jokaste states, at her most pragmatic, “one obtains the best results by asking one’s questions directly. And I would like to know if I spent a month listening to Lady Berenike complain about seasickness for what is essentially a - what is your saying - a tempest in a glass of water?” 

Damen choose to intercede. Whatever game Jokaste intends to play, even he can see she is already tipping her hand. “Auguste would never indulge in such caprices.” 

“Indeed,” the Prince Councillor says, “but my cousin is a young woman in love, and we must all make allowances. I believe she and Henri of Fortaine intend to marry after Auguste, in deference to his position, but the engagement was between family and not a formality, so there is no breach of protocol. I must say,” he adds, beckoning for servants to open the doubled doors of Damen’s suite, “your thirst for gossip will prove quite entertaining, if you keep your ears open.”

Jokaste looks highly amused, but underneath Damen detects a faint current of anger as well. Before he can thank the Prince Councillor for his attention to their delegation and divert Jokaste’s attention elsewhere, a heavy, tanned hand lands on his shoulder, swinging him into a quick embrace.

“It’s good to see you, brother.” Kastor says, impossibly real and taller than Damen remembers. “We have much to discuss.”

\- 

Two days of inaction chafes until Damen finds himself looking forward to the great feast that marks the beginning of festivities. He does not want to impose - he wants to give Laurent time with his family, knows that the winter months are when the quiet work of running kingdom comes to the forefront, sees Alais corralling the droves of nobility into a semblance of order, still the chatelaine in all but name.

Damen aches to help, but it is not his place, so he sits and talks with Kastor, finds amusement in watching him attempt to captivate Jokaste. They bring gossip and letters from home, and the other ladies of the Akielon delegation flock close, a knot of conspicuous foreigners among the sophisticates of Arles, all the best of Vere gathered for this display of power and elegance. Even Kastor’s personal slave Kallias has brightened in the presence of fellow Akielons, confiding to Damen in a soft whisper that the pets of Vere hold his training in very low regard. He has only one friend in the palace, the mercurial ward of the Prince Councillor, and Damen watches with bemusement as Kallias teaches Nicaise how to pluck the strings of a lyre just so. 

The Prince Councillor brings his younger family members to the Akielon suite in the early morning of the second day, a benevolent goshawk presiding over his yellow-haired nestlings. Damen joins him by the floor-length casement windows, feeling off-balance, somehow old beyond his years, as Laurent and Auguste demonstrates differences in Akielon and Veretian fencing to Alais, their captive audience. Kastor, playing chess with Jokaste, occasionally calls out suggestions to one or the other. Nearer to the fire, Kallias embraces Laurent’s slave in greeting, dragging him to where Nicaise is idly flipping his way through a book of Akielon music.

“You are not concerned that your ward is great friends with an Akielon slave?” Damen asks, “Even in Akielos, where such things are allowed latitude, slaves are not treated with such esteem.”

The Prince Councillor watches with an indulgent smile on his face. “My ward is a foundling from my estate,” he explains. “He is - temperamental at times, and Kallias is a remarkably calming presence.”

“Do you intend to instruct him as your heir?” Damen asks, gaze on Nicaise’s remarkable eyes, a shade of cobalt darker than Laurent’s, light brown waves of hair left to curl carelessly into his eyes. From a distance, his delicate features and blue eyes could almost be of royal origin, Kallias and Erasmus his servants, chosen for their complimentary beauty.

The Prince Councillor shakes his head. “My steward brought him up from infancy. I was quite taken with his wit and charm and decided to give him what advantages I could. Nicaise would do very well with patronage, though he has his moments of rebellion. But come now,” he says, pulling Damen’s attention back towards himself, in the magnetic way of all his family. “What of you? Kastor has been saying to me these days, ‘once Auguste is safely settled, you should find my brother a nice Veretian noblewoman.’”

Damen can feel himself flushing, as the Prince Councillor laughs merrily. 

“Do you know,” he says, once he stops himself from laughing, “my nephews both had the same expression of panic when I mentioned marriage.”

“Jokaste says that I bear a great resemblance to a slapped fish whenever I stare so.” Damen admits.

“Ah,” the Prince Councillor says, “Laurent once told Auguste that he would be content in the library while Auguste fathered the heirs. He was ten at the time, I believe.”

Damen smiles. “I would be very surprised if he has changed his mind since then.”

A messenger approaches the Prince Councillor, a note clasped in his hand. “My lord prince, the Patrans have arrived and await in the courtyard. The governor of Ver-Vassel sends her regrets and two caravans of gifts.”

The Prince Councillor straightens, gaining height and authority as he does so. “The duties of state beckon,” he tells Damen, confiding. “Come, nephews, cousin,” he calls, “We must greet our guests.”

Kastor stares after them, distracted just long enough for Jokaste to checkmate his king.

\- 

Halfway into the third course, Damen looks down at the elaborate arrangement of peacock feathers and flowers taking up the centre of the room, careful to sigh under his breath. Torveld of Patras, seated at the high table with Damen, does not react, but discreetly nudges a large flagon of wine closer to Damen. 

Damen wishes that he has Laurent or Jokaste next to him, someone to murmur about the number of toasts that are being offered, or how the Veretian nobles, seated across from the Akielon delegation, appear stiff and a moment away from uttering withering remarks about southern savagery. Instead, Jokaste, Kastor, and the rest are free to carouse and converse at the right-hand table while he sups next to Auguste and Torveld under the eyes of the entire room. 

Right before the Akielon delegation had entered the grand hall, Jokaste had taken Damen aside and forbidden him to discuss fighting, warcraft, or any other impolitic topics. “In fact,” Jokaste had said, eyes dark, curls tumbling artfully over the pearl drops in her ear, “better not speak at all.”

Damen has exhausted harmless inquiries on the weather and Torveld’s two nieces, who are dressed in Patran colours, the greens and blacks making their strongly featured faces even sallower. He briefly entertains thoughts of marrying one of them and fails utterly to picture his life thereafter.

“Henri of Fortaine is not what I had expected for the Lady Alais.” Torveld says, finally taking pity on Damen’s increasing discomfort. 

He looks at Torveld, a man who has spent most of his life fighting and then brokering a peace with the Vaskians and is doing yet more for Patras, feeling newly ashamed of his own fears in the face of further obstacles. He will trust Auguste to handle this, Damen decides, and turns to Torveld. “Perhaps she is best suited to a more settled temperament without the pressures of royal duties,” Damen suggests, “it has been known to happen.”

“Ah, unlike the Lady Jokaste and yourself.” Torveld says, a small smile lurking about his mouth.

Damen sighs, loudly theatrical this time. “Tell me the rumours have not made their way to Patras.”

“I am afraid I cannot reassure you.” Torveld teases. “Lady Jokaste’s mercurial wit and your prowess on the field are very much feted, you know.”

“No one will ever let me forget ‘my prowess in battle’,” Damen quotes, slightly bitter, “it is all anyone sees when they look at me, and even my own father fears for my eventual kingship.”

Torveld hums thoughtfully, the sound almost drowned out by the buzz of conversation in the hall. “You were nineteen when you rode onto the field at Marlas and defeated Auguste. It is no good pretending that isn’t a great feat, especially after you had fought point through some of Vere’s best soldiers. My brother told me, after he heard the news, that you would make a formidable king when you came fully into yourself.”

The weight of knowledge hangs heavily over Damen, and he wishes he could speak of the full truth of Marlas, feeling the force of the arrow slamming himself into Auguste, the shaft sticking out from the vulnerable spot just under his shoulder plate. He remembers overbalancing, going down on one knee, even as the soldiers had rushed at them, had looked up to Auguste shouting commands hoarsely into the crowd. 

Damen says, quietly so no one would hear, least of all Auguste, “I fell, and he told me to rise and fight. He could have killed me on the field, and no one would have known, but he told me to rise, and stood with me until I could.”

Marlas comes back to him, piecemeal. The shock of Auguste dropping a shield into his hands, arm bracing him against falling further back. Staring down at the golden painted edges and grasping the metal, still warm from Auguste’s hand. Tasting the blood in his mouth, feeling the mud beneath his feet as he had dug the shield’s point into the ground for leverage, rising by slow inches. 

Damen reaches for his cup, wants to wash the taste of battle from his mouth.

Torveld is silent for a moment, expression thoughtful and easy to read after years spent with guileful Veretians. “Ah,” he says, and takes a long drink of wine from his own cup. “That changes matters somewhat.”

“Auguste will have my trust and gratitude for as long as I live.” Damen says. “I only regret that I have no greater gift to give him than a treaty and an attempt at peace.”

Damen sits back, surprised, when Torveld begins to laugh. “I do forget how young you are, when I speak to you. Prince Damianos, if I may, these are no mean gifts you hold in your hand.”

“Perhaps,” Damen allows, “But if you knew -” He stops as Auguste rises to his feet, his presence commanding the attention of everyone in the hall. Damen watches for signs of discomfort, but Auguste glides through toasts and felicitations to everyone as if the Prince Councillor had not been advising him on the attendant consequences of each potential consort. 

The Prince Councillor stands, equally imposing next to Auguste, and raises his gilded cup. “I would like to toast the king’s health.” His voice is sonorous in the respectful silence. “I have watched my nephew grow into a fine warrior, and I could not ask for a better king.” The Patran and Akielon contingents, swept up in the excitement of the Veretian nobles, pound the tables and cheer uproariously, while the ladies politely restrain themselves to clapping.

Lord Touars is the first to speak after the thunderous approval has subsided. “What better way to celebrate the king’s health by a display of his gallantry? After all, ladies,” Touars nods toward the Patran princesses. “Would you not like to see the skill and strength of one who might be your husband? A friendly match, my lord king, I insist.”

As Veretian ploys go, it is rather blatant, Damen thinks, and looks at Auguste, waiting for his cue. Guion and Arran have not troubled to take matters into their own hands, perhaps preferring to use intermediaries, in the tortuous way that all Veretians seem to learn in the cradle. Auguste tosses back his cup of wine, smiles lopsidedly at Damen.

Auguste calls back to Lord Touars, below him. “Why not, indeed.”

The calls for armour and swords go out. Damen sees Jokaste murmur something to Kastor, leaning close enough for her curls to brush his shoulder. He feels no joy at the appearance of Kastor’s success with her, overtaken by anxiety for Auguste and Laurent as he considers - the timing is all wrong, with foreign representatives here to witness this overt strike against Auguste - but perhaps they cannot allow the marriage to go forward, for Auguste to further strengthen his rule.

Unbidden, Nicaise stands, “Everyone knows the king is the best swordsman in Vere. If you wanted a spectacle, Lord Touars, you should have asked him to spar with Prince Damianos.”

Beside him, Torveld gives a low whistle. “Now what is he about?” Torveld murmurs softly. “It is not the time to remind everyone of Marlas.” Damen doesn’t need Torveld to tell him so: the room has become dangerously still, Akielons tight-lipped with pride and Veretians bright-eyed with anger, self-control eroded by free-flowing wine, each waiting for the other to give a reason to take up arms.

The Patrans, seated at the table between Vere and Akielos, carefully do not move.

The Prince Councillor rises from his seat next to Auguste, stance firm. “You overstep yourself, Nicaise.” His voice, reproachful and commanding, gives rise to a series of shivers from the assembled pets in the hall. Damen sees a vivid redhead inch closer to his master and lay his head so his neck is bared, while others shift position. The border lords of Vere, pet-less, look merely obstinate.

However the intervention had been intended, it is too late, and Lord Touars, angry and humiliated, takes up Nicaise’s challenge. He too, had been at Marlas, had fought against Kastor’s command. His fort, now within riding distance of the border, must daily chafe in the knowledge of losing Delpha. 

Damen stands. “I will submit myself to the king’s mercy.” He says, ignoring Laurent’s sudden movement, on the far side of the high table. 

Auguste, features settled in the familiar cast of determination Damen remembers from a heated summery day, only a year and two seasons ago, nods. “We fight until first blood, as is traditional.”

He places a hand, reassuring, on Damen’s shoulder, eyes warm in the candlelight. Damen does not say, I cannot give back what I have taken, does not promise to do everything Auguste asks of him, does not even tell him, honestly, that he is sorry it has come to this at last; but some of it must show in his face, because Auguste tilts his head to one side, the slight gesture enough of a signal that Damen looks over to where Guion and Arran are whispering furiously to each other.

Very well, Damen decides. If Auguste needs him to draw out the traitors in his midst, then Damen will do his best to oblige.

As it had been with Marlas, Kastor checks over each piece of armour, testing and re-testing the fit of each buckled strap until it fits perfectly, while over Kastor’s shoulder Damen sees Laurent fussing over Auguste, the occasional commentary on Damen’s technique traveling over the perfect silence in the hall. A space has been cleared in front of the tables, and the high table now seats the Prince Councillor and his four fellow council members in addition to Torveld. Alais sits next to Henri of Fortaine at the lower tables, back ramrod straight and lips tight. Her eyes meet Damen’s and the challenge in them is clear: if Damen even injures Auguste, he knows, Alais will be the first in line to slip a knife into his heart.

When the preparations are almost complete, Jokaste approaches, waits until Kastor is pretending not to listen before she straightens Damen’s hair from its usual mess. “Don’t disgrace yourself,” she says, eyes intent on his face, “I’ve spent far too long cozying up to you to have you die on me now.” And then, lightning quick, between kisses to both his cheeks, Jokaste whispers, “I know you trust Auguste unreservedly, but something is not right here.”

She steps back gracefully, removing one of her pearl drops, and pins it to Damen’s collar. “Be careful, my prince.”

Her affection stuns Damen, who had always thought Jokaste worked to tolerate him for the sake of her ambitions, but he does not have time to respond, because the herald is announcing the rules of the bout to the assembled guests in the hall.

Damen sees Laurent’s face, white and pinched with strain, eyes flickering between the high table and Auguste, knows that he is hoping his uncle will step in and stop this, knowing that he is calculating the manifold ways this bout could end badly, his mind throwing up the worst it could possibly imagine, or perhaps freezing altogether, but Damen is too far away, and cannot offer Laurent comfort, squeeze gently at the base of his neck until his tension melts away entirely.

At the first pass, Auguste smiles at him reassuringly, and at the second, Lady Berenike calls, voice cutting through the deadened air, “Fight, you Vere-loving bastard!” Out the corner of his eye, Damen sees Jokaste whirl around, vengeance in every line of her body, but then Auguste’s sword swings overhead, and he moves forward again, losing sight of everything but gold-washed armour and Auguste’s eyes, steady and calm.

Slowly, Damen watches Auguste strike and counter-strike with dawning realization and delight, feels himself shift into familiar gestures, and they move now with purpose, echoing each other in mimicry of a desperate match on uncertain soil, beset by enemies on all sides. 

It is easy, now, to turn away Auguste’s sword with a countering parry, bracing his wrist just so, remembering how his spear had splintered in his grasp. The intensity is still there, Damen still drawing upon every lesson and hour of practice he’d had on the sawdust. With the benefit of sparring against Laurent, Damen is able to recognize anew the formidable opponent he has in Auguste, his quick strikes unhampered by size and his uncanny sense of Damen’s movements heightened by foreknowledge. Damen wonders if anyone sees the true nature of this match, if they can sense the give-and-take of a dance instead of killing intent.

Auguste darts here and there, tawny hair flattened with sweat, one armguard already flown off and the other dented, twin sunbursts on his shoulders, impossibly bright in the candlelight of the banquet hall.

With the dispassionate clarity that comes during sparring, Damen knows that if he presses on, he could win - Damen does not now have an arrow in his shoulder, impeding his movements, and he does not have the fate of his kingdom and his father’s pride weighing down his shoulders - and if Damen knows, then surely Auguste knows as well. He looks up into Auguste’s eyes, and sees that Auguste intends to make true the years-old assumption of Damen’s victory on the field, that his sense of honour wants to restore some part of certainty to Damen’s conscience.

But Damen has already proven himself to those who matter, and he does not think that if he defeats Auguste here, he would be any better in the eyes of his father or his people. Auguste would lose the respect he has spent the last year earning back, labouring with his people so that they remember their golden prince, once more untarnished by loss. 

He is still the best king Vere would have, perhaps ever, and the loss of its faith in Auguste will do irreparable damage. Perhaps it will doom Vere to a fate Damen had previously imagined: to become ever smaller under some other guidance, until the name of Vere is synonymous for treachery and decadence, pride twisted until only vanity and superficiality remains. This, more than the knowledge of Guion and Arran’s triumph, allows Damen to leave aside a lifetime of struggle and cede the match.

For a moment, pushed almost to the edge of his strength, Auguste stares at Damen from across locked swords, their movements perfected synchronized, the sound of breaths audible but indistinguishable from each other.

Around them, the room erupts into chaos, and belatedly Damen notices a stranger dressed in the heavy mountain robes of Vask, flanked by Lady Alais and Lady Vannis. Auguste says, “Ah,” notes of pride and surprise intermingling in his voice. 

“You planned this?” Damen asks him in an undertone, but Auguste only shakes his head, eyes fixed on Lady Alais.

She steps forward, regal in cream and cloth-of-gold silks, having eschewed her usual palette of blues. Placidly, as if he is only joining a conversation about the weather, Laurent moves to flank her, his azure jacket flashing with golden embroidery. 

The effect is immediate: all the lords and ladies of the hall stand and bow or curtsey, aware of the royal blood that flows in their veins. The unknown Vaskian sweeps out a wide bow behind herself, her maroon velvet cloak pooling in a semi-circle behind her. 

Laurent says, “You may be seated.” The Prince Councillor, from his vantage point at the high table, remains standing, while Lady Vannis rises from her curtsey and walks to the hallway without excusing herself. 

Damen looks around and spots Kastor frowning in confusion with the rest of the court, while Jokaste sits back, a subdued quirk of her lips signalling enormous enjoyment. 

“This is not the proper way to conduct yourselves -“ the Prince Councillor begins, and Lady Alais raises her eyes from Auguste’s sweat-covered brow to her cousin, wrath colouring her cheeks. At this, Damen feels his stomach settle: if Lady Alais can allow herself the luxury of anger, then all is well.

“There’s no need to pretend, cousin,” she says, silvery voice singing out and echoing over the stones of the large hall. “Or do you consider fratricide proper conduct?” Damen feels her words punch through his gut, just as she undoubtedly intends, his world reforming anew around her accusation and what it reveals.

“My dear child,” the Prince Councillor says, gently, “you have had too much wine and excitement. Allow your betrothed escort you to your chambers.” 

Henri of Fortaine rises, as if on cue, but Laurent says, one hand light on his sword hilt and eyes on Lady Alais, “If any of you dare lay one hand on her, it will go very hard for you indeed.” His voice still pleasant in a conversational undertone, Laurent continues, “That includes you, cur.”

Lord Guion rises, preparing to speak, but Auguste nods at the assembled ladies in front of himself and Damen. “We hear and acknowledge your suit. What is your accusation?”

In unison, they curtsey again, Laurent standing just a handspan apart, an outsider, protective. 

“I have with me proofs physical and testimonial that Prince Leufroi of Vere committed high treason; his crimes are thus: fratricide of his brother King Aleron, conspiring to kill then-Crown Prince Auguste, conspiring to kill King Auguste, collusion with Guion and Arran, his fellow councillors, and the misuse of treasury funds to acquire a private mercenary army.” Lady Alais proclaims, a bundle of letters and ledgers in her hands. 

“These are serious crimes. Have you proof incontrovertible?” Auguste asks, still standing parade rest, hands holding his sword in front of him.

“I do, my lord king,” she replies. From behind her, Lady Vannis leads a group of men, prisoners all, through the wide doors. “These letters are coded correspondence from your uncle detailing his plans to Guion and Arran, they are quite thorough, I assure you. It has also been some time that Councillors Jeurre and Chelaut have noticed discrepancies in the treasury funds - the money has been traced to mercenaries from Vask and the Northern Steppes. 

“And if you still attempt to dispute your guilt, cousin,” Alais turns to face the high table, where Arran and Guion are trying to distance themselves from the Prince Councillor. “These are the men whom you paid to ambush Auguste as he fought the Akielons at Marlas. They were told to surround him during the duel with Prince Damianos and to finish him off if necessary. One in particular was paid enough to buy his way into a minor noble house of Ver-Vask - do you know for which task?” Alais sweeps her arms out, including the whole court in her question.

Spellbound, Damen feels himself leaning forward with the rest of the court. “He is an archer of uncommon talent. So talented, in fact, that he could fire an Akielon arrow into the throat of a king at the front lines while he hid on a nearby hill. Your own brother and nephew, cousin. Does your conscience speak, or has it been entirely silenced by your greed for power?”

“It is not true,” Guion breathes. “You are to become my daughter.”

Alais snorts. “I was observed reading the treasury ledgers, and then found alone in a room with Henri of Fortaine two weeks later at Chastillon. Do you really think it coincidental that this occurred at my uncle’s hunting lodge? That he promised me all would be well, provided I agree to marry that dull-witted boy?”

Auguste frowns. “Why did you not come to me then, cousin?”

“And miss the chance to find the truth?” Alais throws back to Auguste, silk-gloved hands shifting as they hold the bundled papers.

“It is purely hearsay,” the Prince Councillor says, “If you wished to get out of marrying Henri, my child, there was no need for all this fuss. I would have found a way of preserving your reputation.”

At this, even Torveld of Patras looks a little incredulous.

“It is not hearsay.” Damen turns to say. “I recognize three of these men from Marlas. I saw them rush Auguste, wearing the garb of Veretian soldiers, and I knocked them down as we stood back to back on the field.” He raises one fist to the opposite shoulder. “I swear this on my honour and princehood.”

“The word of a turncoat Akielon isn’t worth the breath it uses,” Lord Touars spits, bringing Jokaste to her feet in a flash. 

Auguste holds out a hand. “Prince Damianos has my total confidence. There is a scar on his left shoulder, from the field of Marlas - tell me the truth of your plans, uncle, for it must have upset your plans so, to have the Akielon prince use his own body to shield me from your arrows.”

“If you are determined to believe that an Akielon would forfeit his own life to save you, then I have no choice but to defend myself.” The Prince Councillor says, voice heavy with disappointment. Even now, Damen has difficulty believing he truly plotted for the deaths of his family, all to gain the throne.

The Prince Councillor gathers himself, authority undiminished. “I, Leufroi of Vere, prince of the realm, demand the right to trial by combat in defense of my good name against these calumnies. Lady Alais of Chasteigne, name your champion.”

For the first time that night, Lady Alais falters, uncertainty on her face as she takes in Auguste, his stance fraying after hours of sparring with Damen, her mind traveling the same path as Damen’s and reaching the same conclusion - 

“I name myself champion.” Laurent says.


	4. Chapter 4

“I seem to be running out of favours,” Jokaste says pointedly, as she pins her remaining pearl eardrop to Laurent’s white lawn shirt where it peeks out from under his ceremonial gorget. 

“My mother had a very fine string, if you can wait until after I’m done with my uncle,” Laurent says, snappish and agitated under Damen’s hands. 

Jokaste holds his face between her slender hands. “You know I don’t begrudge you the pearl,” she replies, while Damen checks the fit of the padded practice tunic. He meets her eyes over Laurent’s head, and knows she feels the same need to shield Laurent from what awaits him. “I can still fight,” Damen offers, watching Laurent buckle his armguards in place. 

“I know there are problems of scale when you are involved, but I am not actually a child. I fight my own battles.” Laurent says, ignoring Damen and stepping back from both of them, his back to where the Prince Councillor is being readied by his own household. 

“I don’t-“ Damen begins, defensive, while Jokaste says, at the same time, “You know what you’re like when you’re emotional.”

Laurent gives her a thin-lipped smile, lifting one vambraced arm to signal his readiness to the head table, where Auguste presides with the three other councillors and Torveld of Patras. “Don’t worry, Jokaste,” Laurent says, “I’m not angry.”

“I know,” Jokaste says softly to Laurent’s departing figure as he strides to the centre of the room, “You’re heartbroken.”

Damen turns to look at her, but the duel is starting, and she chivvies him into position next to the Lady Alais, who is ignoring the opponents to her suit with the full force of her personality. The other members of court are fanned out at the other end of the room, in a full semi-circle where the tables and chairs had been, eyes flickering from Lady Alais to Auguste to Guion and back again.

Jokaste’s and Damen’s steps are perfectly audible in the otherwise silent room, a counterpoint to the Prince Councillor’s measured and steady walk to where Laurent waits, sword already out and in the starting position.

Auguste nods to the remaining councillors, the four court scribes positioned at the corners of the room, and raises his arm. He announces, crisply, “The rules of trial by combat are sacred to tradition - the drawing of first blood marks the winner. As the accused, Prince Leufroi has choice of time and method by which he is tried. Neither party may seek recourse after today’s trial is ended. If the prince is found guilty, his life is forfeit in the eyes of the crown. Scribes and witnesses, attention. Combatants, ready yourselves.” 

Damen admires the calm Auguste displays, as if the people inside the ring of closely gathered courtiers and officials are ordinary subjects, and not his uncle and brother.

Head Councillor Herode, the movement brittle but considered, gives the signal to begin.

The assembled courtiers inhale as one, holding their breaths in anticipation, but Laurent and his uncle only circle each other, eyes intent. Jokaste’s hold on Damen’s arm tightens to the point of pain, but it is a passing annoyance, nothing more. On his far side, the Lady Alais’ hands clench and unclench around the fine material of her gown, until Jokaste reaches out and grasps her hand, all without looking away from Laurent.

“A duel generally involves some element of fighting, uncle.” Laurent says, as if he has a cup of hippocras in one hand, idly debating academic points of protocol.

Prince Leufroi smiles, still circling Laurent, “Intemperance, Laurent, that was always your besetting sin.” He lunges while speaking, tempered steel rippling in the light as he stabs at Laurent, aiming straight for the heart.

“I’ll show you intemperate,” Laurent says, easily deflecting the blow while stepping forward and forcing his uncle to engage in a series of rapid parries and thrusts. 

They meet in several bouts, always one beating the other back. Damen watches, sickening realization growing in the pit of his stomach. Prince Leufroi is a seasoned warrior, well-balanced and even in his every move. Damen remembers admiring the quicksilver grace of Laurent’s fencing in Akielos; here stands the original: surefooted, prudent, and above all canny. Where Laurent darts and strikes like flames fanned by sudden winds, his uncle uses the same elegant rapidity to slowly and inexorably push his opponent into untenable positions. 

Over and over again, he watches them come together and retreat, Jokaste’s hand a vice on his upper arm, knowing that for all Laurent’s skill, his uncle will win this match. Laurent’s strength has yet to wane, but his uncle is always two steps ahead, drawing the match out and waiting for him to fail. 

Lady Alais flinches when Laurent executes a spectacular series of strikes, the sound of clashing steel ringing out into the crowd. Damen looks up at Auguste, standing perfectly still in parade rest position with the judges, his mouth and eyes tight with the same emotions that his cousin is striving to keep in check. 

Damen finds himself playing this duel to its natural conclusion, his mind racing ahead, choosing and discarding what he knows of Laurent’s style, and coming up blank.

“You trained him.” Lady Alais says, quietly. “If you tell me to hope, I will do so.”

As Laurent falls back to give himself more room to maneuver, Damen turns and looks at her profile, so similar and so proud - but Lady Alais would give herself up and possibly Auguste too, to save Laurent, however temporarily. He does not want their uncle to win, but he knows he too will not be able to bear the sight of Laurent cut down by an expert hand.

“Wait,” Jokaste commands, eyes still fixed on the duel. “I think he may surprise even you, Damen.”

Lady Alais’ lips thin. “I will not win this - this power play at the expense of my cousin’s life.”

“We may not have the choice anymore, my lady.” Damen says, as he watches Laurent straining to block Prince Leufroi’s downward swing, both hands at the hilt. His arms are trembling with exhaustion, both he and his uncle breathing heavily, in rhythm with their own movements.

Laurent twists out of range, sword point not lowering as he meets his uncle’s eyes, defiant to the last. Damen knows Laurent from years of pushing him to his limits, which is the only reason he sees it when it comes - Laurent has a fatal tendency to hesitate and freeze when he has used up all options available to him. Despite Damen’s efforts, Laurent’s mind will empty, reflexive panic taking the place of thought.

Prince Leufroi must know this too, and he adjusts his aim, directly for Laurent’s heart again. “It is such a pity,” he says, confident in his ascendancy, “you were a very promising child.”

Weary, Laurent makes an easy target, and he rocks a little as if slapped, eyes wide and dark with some unnameable emotion. Damen pulls away from Jokaste, calculating the time he needs to liberate a sword from one of the guards. 

The Prince Councillor presses forward with flawless form, and Laurent doesn’t move to get out of the way of his sword, instead stepping forward and throwing his weight into his sword arm. The tactic is Akielon down to the bones, trusting to strength and simple angles of force - and Damen remembers, from his first match with Laurent - renders Veretian forms utterly useless.

“You forget, uncle,” Laurent says, as the rest of the court watches, spellbound, at the still-vibrating sword in his hand as the other flies through the air in a bright arc, “children grow up.” 

Prince Leufroi spreads his empty hands, conciliatory again, saying, “It hurts me that we cannot treat each other as family.”

Damen had thought he had encountered Laurent’s hatred, in the throne room so many years ago, but as Laurent tilts his head, he can feel the heat of it even in the periphery. Eyes hard and glittering, Laurent thrusts his sword through his uncle. 

Beside Damen, Jokaste hisses in surprise, while Lady Alais lets out a small cry, and quickly silences herself.

Laurent draws the sword out again, slowly, blood dripping from the blade. “There,” he says, flinging it down before Guion and Arran, “you have your first blood.”

In the sudden flurry of movement that follows, Prince Leufroi slips quietly to the ground, hands and feet twitching, before they fall still as well. Surrounded by the chaos of raised voices and consternation, it is some time before servants are summoned.

“In Akielos, a man like that would be dragged behind a team of horses.” Jokaste says, conversational, as the servants cover the Prince Councillor’s body with a linen sheet. The fabric immediately absorbs the wine-dark blood seeping out from under his body, settling around his body so only the rough outlines of his torso and legs are discernible. 

Lady Alais turns, one eyebrow raised. “That seems rather undignified, not to speak of wasteful.”

Damen scans the room, only half-listening to the two of them pretend at indifference. Laurent had taken advantage of the confusion and left the room, but where did he go?

Seeing his uncertainty, Kastor comes forward and places and hand on Jokaste’s shoulder, solicitous. “My lady,” he says, “I think it may be time to let the Veretians deal with their own affairs.” He nods back at Damen and steers her away.

Damen turns, somewhat at a loss. Lady Alais, with her customary air of decision, charges him with Laurent’s safe retrieval and heads toward Auguste, standing at the centre of a number of anxious nobles.

\- 

It is just like Laurent, Damen thinks, to pick the most difficult places. The roofs of the Veretian palace are slippery with ice, and may at any second shed their burdens on to the balconies below. 

“You can report back to my brother now.” Laurent says, legs dangling precariously out over the inner courtyard. 

Damen joins him at the railing, shivering a little in the wintry night air of Arles. “It does not seem the best place to sit. There’s no need to risk break your neck to gaze at the stars.”

Laurent turns, suddenly. “You think I should not have killed him.”

“It may have been better,” Damen admits, “if the court could see his crimes laid out and accept the condemnation as justice.”

“You don’t know what he’s like.” Laurent says, shoulders and back straight. “He has a way of -“

“- Of making himself believed.” Damen finishes for him. “I thought he was an honourable man, too.”

“Alive, he was a danger to my brother,” Laurent continues, “I could not let him remain unchecked.”

Damen rests a hand, companionably, on his shoulder. “It is not what I would have done,” he says, and feels Laurent stiffening, “but I trust your judgment in these matters.”

“The testimony from Guion and Arran should satisfy your need for justice,” Laurent replies, his usual wry distance restored. 

“Indeed,” Damen adds, “and you will have a royal wedding on your hands soon enough.”

Laurent harrumphs, but slides closer to Damen, right shoulder almost directly under Damen’s arm. “It is not a weakness,” Damen begins carefully, knowing Laurent does not yet understand, “he was your uncle, and you loved him well.”

“You think my uncle to be a virtuous man, led astray by his ambitions and his councillors?” Laurent asks, face turned away toward the gardens and mazes again. “You will find that he was a corrupt sybarite who hid his vast appetite for power under habitual courtesy. He wasn’t worth the price of the clothes I wear, and I loved him like my own father.”

“If he did not have some qualities, you would not love him as you do. It speaks to your own strength, that you were able to lift the sword and do what was necessary in your eyes despite that.” Damen says, unsure of the dangerous stillness in Laurent’s spine.

“Qualities.” Laurent hums for a second, and then mentions, almost offhand. “His ward, the boy Nicaise. He may be a foundling, but he spent his childhood being trained as a pet, and not under some steward’s wing.”

Damen does not know what Laurent is telling him, or rather, does not want to accept it. “He probably also spied for my uncle in the palace, or did you forget that he provoked your match with Auguste?”

“He’s just a child,” Damen says. 

“Yes. He’s lucky to escape while he can. My uncle’s fondness does not outlast the stirrings of adolescence.” Laurent tilts his head back at Damen, expression unexpectedly soft. “I’ve shocked you.”

He does not know how to respond, and then they both hear the tapping of feet behind them. Damen places a hand on the hilt of his sword while turning himself to shield Laurent with his body. He does not think they will be ambushed in the royal palace, but tonight has proven to be a succession of surprises - Damen does not want to be caught unwary.

“Your highness.” The messenger stumbles, trying to catch his breath as he kneels, his dark head bowed. “I bear news from Ios. The King is gravely ill.”

\- 

The journey back is a haze of heart-sick worry and a strange lassitude, Damen walking the length of their small vessel over and over to still the tumbling of his thoughts. 

At the docks of Ios, with the white cliffs looming overhead, Hypermenestra sits astride her fastest mare, with two other horses beside her, their saddles empty. “We must hurry,” Kastor advises, dragging Damen along. They mount their horses and leave Jokaste behind to manage their homecoming. 

“Is he-“ Damen dreads asking, even as he forces the words out. Hypermenestra, tracks of tears still on her cheeks, shakes her head and continues her headlong rush to the king’s chambers. Somehow she manages to keep walking with them, when Kastor towers over her by a head and Damen is even taller.

When they reach Theomedes’ room, Damen smells the lingering incense in the air, the last of the death rites already performed. He takes one shaky step, and then another, until he collapses by his father’s bed. He takes a limp hand in his own, fingers numb. 

“Father,” Damen calls, softly, “I am come home.” Theomedes’ beard, so long his pride and joy, is falling out in clumps, and black strands litter his pillow. He sleeps, breath shallow, stirring only a little when Hypermenestra lays a gentle hand on his brow. On the opposite side, Kastor kneels as well, dark eyes troubled.

“My dear,” Hypermenestra says, “open your eyes.”

Theomedes groans, his words interrupted by coughing. “I dreamt of Damen, shipwrecked on the shores of Sicyon.”

“It is me, father,” Damen says. “We are safe, Kastor and I both.”

Theomedes shifts, makes to sit up, but Hypermenestra keeps him abed, “My boys,” he says, finally, “You are the best of my achievements. You will be a great king, and Kastor will make sure your tender heart doesn’t trample all over your common sense.”

“Father,” Damen begs, voice cracking over his words, “I will hold the kingdom until you are well again.”

“Be good,” Theomedes replies, strength already fading, “it’s time to see if your ideals bear up against what is real.”

He waves Kastor away with his free hand, but cannot withdraw the other, grasped firmly in Damen’s. 

“It is not the place of princes, to weep at their father’s feet.” Hypermenestra reminds him. She adjusts her own dress to sit at Theomedes’ side. “You should meet with the kyroi after you make yourself presentable, and there are audiences that have been waiting for your father that now fall to you.”

She looks at Damen and smiles. “Go on, Damianos, I will sit with him. Your place is with the kingdom - Akielos needs its prince.”

“Will you come get me,” Damen asks, “when it is time?”

Hypermenestra nods, and takes Theomedes’ hand from him. 

-

Perhaps it is the strain of governing the kingdom after two long trips in rapid succession, or Damen’s natural aversion to the sea, but he grows weaker by the day, taking longer and longer to read each report, feeling the appeals for the king’s judgment grow impossibly complex, until he is abed with fever when the news of his father’s death comes to him. 

Jokaste, face white, stays with him and dismisses his slaves, singing soothing nonsense into his ear.

Damen has a vague sense of time passing, the room dimming and brightening again with the sun’s cycles. Always Jokaste is there, with water or soup when he needs sustenance, her dark hair hanging above him like a veil. Once he is awoken by the war drums, another time by dirges, and Damen knows that he has forgotten something essential but he cannot summon up the energy, and so he obeys Jokaste, and sleeps.


	5. Chapter 5

Damen stirs uneasily, mind still foggy with sleep. It is not right, some part of him decides. Marlas had been in early spring, the air already heated with summer’s promise, and the men had been too tired from days of fighting to shout - the sounds around him are at a distance, as if through walls, and the men are speaking Akielon. He stumbles to his feet, heavy sheepskin and wool blankets discarded on his bed. He frowns to see that his sword is not in its usual place, and there are only empty cups and a flagon of water on the table. 

The clamour outside grows, swords clattering and ringing against each other. The stone wall of his room is rough and cold under his hands, and Damen gropes around for a weapon of some sort - clearly there is unrest in the palace, and it is his duty to protect the household.

Damen’s hand closes around a ceremonial spear when the door to his chambers bursts open, the wooden folds splintering on impact. He stares, uncomprehending, as Kastor staggers inside, blade bright crimson with blood. He is alone, and wounded in many places.

“Brother,” Damen says, voice rusty with disuse, “who has attacked us?”

Kastor brings up his sword and in one perfect motion, slices the spear in two. He laughs, strangely triumphant, “Always the noble one, Damianos. I tried to give you a painless death like father had, but circumstances have changed, and, well,” he makes an all-encompassing gesture around the room, “needs must.”

“You are mad, Kastor, to say such things.” Damen replies, slowly, dreading and refusing the ugliness of the truth.

“Stand aside, your majesty!” Kassander and Theodoros race past him and engage Kastor, while Philokrates steps past the ruined door. He shouts, “To the king!”, and drops into a ready stance in front of Damen, keeping guard should his friends fail to subdue Kastor.

“The king?” Damen asks of the room at large.

A pair of hands take hold of his elbow, guiding him backwards to sit on his bed, while Kastor is wrestled to the ground, the blade wrenched from his hands.

Jokaste smooths Damen’s hair away from his brow, and says, “You are king now, Damen.”

“You-” Kastor’s lunge brings him almost within striking range of Jokaste, and she smiles as Damen’s guards press him, again, down into the ground. “You promised me!”

Jokaste turns to Kastor, voice icy. “How dare you take what is not yours?”

Damen knows that she will disembowel Kastor with her words if given the least opportunity, and steps in. “That is enough, Jokaste. He meant me well, once.” He is not so sleepy now, and knows the shape of what has happened, if not the cause.

“Did you think I spoke at Marlas to stop a war, dear brother?” Kastor’s face is twisted in a snarl, spittle flying. “I told you about the great and honourable Auguste so that you would die under his sword, and failing that, so you would anger father with your weakness until he turned from you, disgusted, and made me his heir.”

Damen remembers that day, the harness jingling under his hands as he checked it, Kastor’s hand clapping his shoulder with almost jarring force, and then his older brother had been at his side, giving him advice about technique and line formation, as if they had not been drilled in these things side by side since Damen was a child and he an adolescent. 

The banners had snapped in the wind, above his head, and Damen had thought himself fortunate to have Kastor at his side. He had gone into battle believing his brother had the right of it, and resolving to make him proud. 

Jokaste’s hand stays on his right shoulder as she moves to stand next to him. “He conspired with the traitor prince of Vere, and poisoned King Theomedes. Half-brother or not, he deserves to be flayed alive in front of the palace pronaos for his crimes.”

Damen accepts the implications of her words, then turns to her, fierce as a goddess in her fury. 

He rubs a hand over his face. “It is not in me.” Damen looks at her pleadingly. “He is my brother, Jokaste. Even if I wished to agree with you - I cannot.”

Jokaste rounds on him. “You told me years ago that you were glad to have me by your side, that you would trust my judgment in all things. I am advising you now: leave him alive, and he will foment rebellion and weaken your rule until one day you are truly in danger. Utmost loyalty is not in my nature - I will not safeguard you then.”

Damen looks at her soberly. “Is that a threat?”

Jokaste says, “It is a warning.” But Damen can see her eyes, wide with worry - he knows that she thinks she will not care, and two years ago she would not have cared. But now, now she is bound to the fate of Akielos as much as he is, perhaps more, because he had always prepared the essential parts of himself for the kingdom to keep, but she has made a choice to do the same.

They are still willing the other to understand, to gain ground in the face of stone-hard resolve, when the fragments of the doors open again, royal guardsmen flowing into the room. 

“Take him away,” Damen orders. “Make sure he has food and water.” 

The men bow and drag Kastor out, who is still unwilling to concede defeat. 

“If I was already being poisoned,” Damen asks Jokaste, “why did he come to attack in force? Surely there must be another explanation.”

Jokaste glances around the room, still ringed by royal guards and the trio of Philokrates, Theodoros, and Kassander. “Come walk with me,” she suggests, “the air of the gardens will do you good.”

The gardens are the traditional retreat of Akielon queens, and have been, for many years, Hypermenestra’s private domain. Damen must appear doubtful, because Jokaste says, with some impatience, “It will be safe, and I have her permission.”

“My lady,” Theodoros protests, obviously reluctant to leave Damen's presence.

Jokaste purses her lips. “Very well.” She pronounces. “You three may follow, at a distance.”

Damen does not wonder at the sight of three lordlings, one of whom is a kyros himself, taking orders from her. She and Hypermenestra both have a way of speaking as if their mouths hold sunshine and honeycakes, as compelling as it is sweet to the ear. 

The orchards are quiescent at this time of year, trees bare of leaves and waiting for the spring winds to propel them into a new cycle of growth. Damen walks by the pomegranate trees, thinks of the holy maiden Kore, daughter of sacred Damater, under whose guidance all things grow - some stories say she partook of the fruit willingly, and others that she was tricked. There is no real analogy here; Damen is free to stay in Akielos if he wishes, even if he has tied his kingship and heart both so closely to the throne of Vere, his is not a life forever split in twain. 

Vere, with all its sensuous delights and sophistication, does not provide the true sense of peace and homecoming Damen has always found in the cliffs of Ios, its white chalk a beacon to all travelers. As long as they hold firm, this highest point of the Akielon capital, then all would be well.

Damen is not quick as Kastor is, is not well-versed in the secrets of men’s hearts; he cannot debate on points of philosophy from dawn til dusk, but for all that, he loves Akielos, trusts to his own strengths and shores up his weaknesses with those around him. He is coming to recognize that boyhood worship does not, indeed, survive the test of time, and that his beloved older brother has succumbed to the corruption of fear, of fearing others more powerful than he. Damen’s eyes are open to the dangers of conspiracy and treachery, but he knows that a kingdom is a delicate balance of myriad forces, and Kastor would never stop until he gained control of everything, even if it means destroying all that stood in his path.

He completes a circuit of the orchard path, Jokaste beside him. 

“Do you see the shape of it?” Jokaste asks, knowing the rhythm and shape of his thoughts nearly as well as Damen himself.

He glances to the left, where his self-appointed guards stand, each ready to spend his life in Damen’s defense. Jokaste follows his eyes, and smiles.

“They have pledged themselves to you, body and soul.” It is a statement of fact, though Damen has not undergone the rituals to prepare for kingship, nor does he actually wear the crown - the succession is in a state of flux, and must be settled quickly for the good of the kingdom.

“Where Philokrates leads, the other two will follow.” Damen says, finally, the knowledge of their faith a silent promise to remain worthy.

“Don’t deny your gift for inspiring devotion in others.” Jokaste says, settling down onto a bench, hands impatient and grasping for Damen’s. He sits, feeling for all the world as if he is a child again. He glares at Jokaste when she slips his hands into a muff, finely made and tasseled with gold.

She laughs at him, and for a moment all is well again. Damen can almost imagine Laurent somewhere in the garden, curled up in some far-off tree, reading the classics of which he is so fond. 

Then she says, “Don’t you see? It is the only way. We cannot let him live, Damen, and you know it.”

“He would be the ruin of the country.” Damen allows. “But I cannot kill my brother, and there is Hypermenestra to think of.”

Jokaste’s face hardens at the mention of Hypermenestra. “If you truly think all this happened without her knowledge, then you do not merit the effort I have expended in order to keep you safe. There are two kyroi in your dungeons, along with their seneschals, and a number of officers in the army, all complicit in his attempt for the throne.” 

The scope of Kastor’s preparations stretch farther than Damen had expected, but - “How can you know this?”

She throws up her hands, seeking for shreds of patience in the heavens. “Kastor decided in Arles that I would make the perfect royal mistress - as you would never consider marrying me. Hush,” Jokaste says, eyes intent. “He knows you have your sight fixed on lasting peace with Vere, and assumed I would have no part in it - which I know is not true, Damen, stop trying to interrupt. He barely waited for the Prince Councillor’s corpse to begin cooling before he told me of his plans and my role within them.”

“And he just assumed,” Damen states, disbelieving.

“Well,” Jokaste says, eyes cast down like the demure maiden she is not, “I may have let him believe certain things.”

Damen hums in consideration, eyes following the intricate knots of her hair. “Well, it must be very tempting,” he offers, “I imagine any number of girls would kill for the chance to warm his bed, and he is considered very handsome - ouch!” 

He ducks away from Jokaste’s hand. “It must have been frustrating, all those years looking at my ugly face, when you could have had any man you wanted - ah!” Jokaste catches Damen as he slips off the bench, and waves off Philokrates, who steps back to give them privacy once again.

Damen smiles at her, because all is forgiven. “Kastor made the same mistake I did, when I first met you. I would never,” he says, seeing the answering smile already blooming on her face, “forget the brilliant mind behind your beautiful face.”

“You royal princes are all flattery and no substance,” she retorts. 

“Are we not allowed the foibles of youth?” Damen teases. “It is alright, you know. I don’t credit you with Philokrates’ devoted temperament.”

Jokaste keeps smiling. “I had not thought myself to be in the least doglike.”

He could say that he understands her particular kind of allegiance, given with the mind, and then, if the ruler proves himself, followed by the heart, or give her platitudes about a king’s trust in his subjects, which would most likely earn him another blow or two. 

“I shall do my best to cover you in pearls,” Damen jokes instead, “and little else.”

Jokaste’s perfectly arched brows rise slightly. “That is almost close to inappropriate.” She comments approvingly. “You would do well to remember, o king, that your subjects possess motives not within the realms of duty or greed.”

“It is true.” Damen agrees. “They could seek personal gain while being loyal to the kingdom. It’s the best of both worlds, don't you think?”

“All this gallantry has gone to my head,” Jokaste murmurs. “You will find, Damen, that my opinion on the matter of Kastor remains unchanged.”

Damen sighs. “And I cannot begin my reign with the murder of my brother.”

“It isn’t murder,” Jokaste states, matter-of-fact. “He killed your father with the same poison he put in your food. I planned to flush him out of hiding before the poison could really make its way into your body, which worked a little too well, it seems. He is a regicide, Damen, you can’t deny the truth.”

“A flaying on the pronaos, followed by a coronation?” Damen asks, willing her to understand his side of the situation.

She returns his gaze, dark eyes level and serious. “Prepare a public trial if you must, but you cannot be seen to favour members of your own family in these matters, or the rumours of collusion will grow. If that comes to pass, Damen, we will all lose for it.” With that, she beckons the men closer, and has them escort Damen back to his rooms.

\- 

The assembled barons pledge their loyalty, one by one, and Damen wishes there would be an end to the ceremonies - but he cannot leave the throne room when they have been summoned from all corners of the kingdom for this purpose alone. He accepts each oath of fealty with the appropriate solemnity, knowing that at least he has an hour’s rest before a session with the kyroi, to discuss the transition to his rule and new policies he wishes to set into place. 

He will have to fight Galenos on the matter of the kingsguard, but Philokrates and Nikandros will support him. Beside Damen, the king’s own seneschal clears his throat. Damen focuses his attention on the room and sees guard-captain Antinous kneeling before him. The barons and kyroi shuffle in discomfort at the disruption in their routine. Behind them, the palace guard rings the room, a silent presence and reminder of the king’s authority in his own residence.

Jokaste looks sidelong at him. He weighs his options, and gives a minute shake of his head. “Is it urgent?” he asks.

“No, your majesty.” Despite his words, he cannot hide the way his hands shake or the beads of sweat dotting his forehead.

“Kyros Nikandros, will you accompany the captain and see to settling things in my absence?” Damen asks, even if his word is as good as a command in front of such an audience. 

Thankfully, Nikandros does not object, and he leaves with Antinous. Nevertheless, Damen notices, along with a few of his more observant barons, that he does not lift the order for the men under his command. With an internal sigh, Damen finishes the ceremony surrounded by guards.

The moment Jokaste and Damen enter the council chambers, Antinous bows and relays the news, with an air of great relief. “My lord king, my lady,” he says, “the traitor is dead.”

Damen and Jokaste stare at each other, and then at the guardsmen, who have followed Damen from the throne hall, and ringed the room in just moments.

“Report, guard-captain.” Jokaste says, voice steady. Damen feels his way to the throne’s edge and stands, only half listening to the exchange in the audience room. He cannot imagine how Kastor has come to die - surely he would not seek to end his life with his own hand? 

“Yes, my lady,” Antinous pauses, and goes on to address Damen as well. “Your majesty.”

Damen nods, because the man is clearly on edge, and it is not his fault, for all that he will forever remember Kastor’s death in association with Antinous’ voice, low and strained.

“He was hale enough the previous evening. When the usual patrol went to check his cell he hurled a bronze krater at one of the soldiers, and broke his nose. This morning, no one wanted to risk having something thrown at them, so they walked by quickly, and he looked as though he had been sleeping.”

When the question comes to him, Damen does not think twice before uttering it. “Did he suffer?” 

Antinous looks up at Damen, as if wondering if it is a trick. “No, majesty. At least, the men don’t think so. He looks peaceful enough.”

Jokaste tilts her head, as though an idea has just occurred to her. “Bring the lady Hypermenestra to us. You may give detailed reports later, after more has been done.” 

“And the men may go with you,” Damen adds. “I am well-protected here.” Antinous looks as if he means to protest, but Jokaste looks down at him, almost lazily, from under her lashes, and he walks away without another word.

Damen, finally free from curious eyes, sits down hard on a chair. 

She is still frowning in thought when Hypermenestra enters the room. “Lady Hypermenestra, am I right in presuming that a bronze cup is missing from your quarters?”

Damen rises, driven beyond his endurance. “Jokaste, she is Kastor’s mother.” She is almost mine, he refrains from adding.

“No, she is right.” Hypermenestra says. “I put poison in the cup.”

Damen feels lightheaded with the revelation, and Jokaste steps closer to Damen, as if to protect him from a woman who would poison her own son.

“It is always the little details, isn’t it.” Hypermenestra muses.

She looks up at Jokaste and smiles, an expression of regret more than anything else, because, as Damen suspects, she will not cry. Damen makes an inarticulate noise, stillborn in his strangled throat, because after all of this, he needs to know why.

“In the end, the blame rests with me. I saw the signs, and did not warn you, because Kastor was my son, flesh of my flesh. And I could not do it.” Hypermenestra lifts her chin. “My weakness condemned Theomedes and almost killed you.”

Jokaste says, voice flat. “Tell us why we should trust you.”

“Kastor inherited my ambition, I think.” Hypermenestra says, still as calm and unflappable as always, “You remind me of myself, when I was younger. Did you never wonder why you were able to bribe your way into Damen’s quarters so easily?”

Damen slips his hand into Jokaste’s, squeezing reassuringly when she stumbles.

“I could have killed him, and you never tried to stop me.” Jokaste whispers, fingers ice cold in Damen’s.

“Oh, but I know you. You wouldn’t kill him until you benefited from it. And I always made sure you stood to gain more with Damen alive.” Hypermenestra says, still distant. “Damen comes of a long line of men who care more about their mistresses than their queens, which was always going to be a dangerous precedent, and I thought I’d prevent that - in a way, you really were perfect - but of course Damen became devoted to the charmingly dangerous Laurent.”

He blanches. “He’s just a child.”

Hypermenestra smiles. “A precocious, beautiful sixteen year old boy with your preferred colouring and build, Damen. I knew the moment I saw him,” she says.

“I wasn’t sure about Kastor, you see, until that little farce with the pins.” Hypermenestra continues. “He liked to think himself cheated, liked to think himself a proper heir to the throne. He had that arrogance in common with your mother, Damen, but she meant well, and Kastor - Kastor did not.”

“So you killed him.” Damen says, numb.

“I gave him an easy death,” Hypermenestra agrees. “He deserved any number of punishments for treason, patricide, and regicide all at once, but he was my son.”

Jokaste says, all traces of her usual deference gone, “If he was guilty of all those things, what does that make you?”

“I was, and am complicit. I won’t deny that.” Hypermenestra says, eyes seeking Damen’s and meeting them unflinchingly. “I knew when I went down to the dungeons that I was destroying my own life as well. But I do mean to tell you this, Damen: you were always the better choice for kingship. Your father liked to throw tantrums, but he never stopped believing you to be the finest son he could have.”

“Then I will exile you,” Damen whispers, past numb lips, “I cannot lose a mother and a brother in one day.”

“You must not.” Hypermenestra replies, stepping forward, “It would weaken you in the eyes of the barons and the commons alike. Jokaste is ready to take my place.”

Damen looks back up at Jokaste for help, but he meets anger and resignation in her eyes. 

“Do not let this weigh on you,” Hypermenestra says, cradling his face in her small hands. “You have been a good son to me, and I will go to my death with open eyes and a willing heart.”

“I assume you have a list of Kastor’s remaining confederates for myself and the royal guards?” Jokaste asks, the line of her mouth firm.

Hypermenestra nods. 

Damen sees Jokaste rise and turn to summon the guards, something fracturing in her expression for just a moment. He places a hand on her shoulder, steering her back to Hypermenestra, and walks out of the room. He does not stay to hear what she says to her mentor, nor does he hear any reply.

-

A week later, after several trials of arms in full view of the commons, and a vigil alone at the top of Ios’ sheer cliffs, Damen is crowned king of Akielos. He does not weep when the golden wreath of laurels is set upon his head, nor when he is blessed and acclaimed by the crowds of his people.


	6. Epilogue

“Well met, your majesty,” Torveld of Patras says, the first of the men to step forward and greet the Akielon contingent. Damen can track the progress of Jokaste’s gaze through the crowd, her presence beside him like a reaping sickle - he sees jaws snapping shut on every side.

“Prince Torveld,” Damen says, remembering his endless training in etiquette and diplomacy through some small miracle that will undoubtedly result in his humiliation by some other means, and soon.

“You honour us with your presence, King Damianos.” The new lord of Guion is a distant cousin, and far more loyal to the throne of Vere than his predecessor. Jokaste’s people report that he grew up in a castle not far from the borders of Chasteigne, and is rumoured to be betrothed to a lady from Alais’ own household. 

Damen smiles at him while stepping forward to clap Torveld on the shoulder. “We were already on the way after inspecting Thrace and the other northern provinces,” he explains, stretching his shoulders after a long ride. “Nikandros hinted that we were beginning to overstay our welcome, so we decided to travel even farther and come visit everyone here.”

Theodoros comes running, armour still half on from his bout. “My lord king!” he yells, “you should have sent word!” Behind him, Damen sees Queen Alais walking along at a much more sedate pace. 

“Tell me we have not fallen to fighting already,” Damen mock-pleads, knowing that the tournament has developed a momentum of its own, and become a much-heralded event among fighters of both kingdoms. 

Queen Alais arrives in time to hear him, and she smiles as she extends her right hand, regally welcoming. “Do not worry, your majesty. We have physicians to heal all their hurts.”

Damen takes her hand, and bows over it. Looking up, he says, “It has only been a year since the rebellion-” He makes a face, involuntarily. Jokaste saves him, as always, from making unfortunate remarks. 

“I do apologize for coming here unannounced.” She interrupts, rising from her own greeting to the queen. “The king and us councillors have been so busy with the reforms and irrigation plans - but you don’t want to hear of all this minutiae, your majesty.” Jokaste cuts herself off graciously, and asks, “How is her royal highness?”

Queen Alais smiles, happily diverted for the moment. “Marguerite is with her father in Arles.”

“So you did not name the princess after her uncle,” Damen states, remembering some small tidbit from a letter Laurent had sent. 

Alais laughs, as does Jokaste. “Oh no,” Alais says, dimpling briefly. “My daughter has enough names to satisfy the whole pack of cousins, my scapegrace brother-in-law included.”

Eleuftheria of Patras approaches them, another girl on her arm, both trailing servants and guards. When she sees Alais, the other girl separates from her companion, skidding to a stop in front of Damen. She beams at him, her eyes a twinkling cornflower blue.

“King Damianos! My cousin has told me so much of you!” She exclaims, and her face does share a passing resemblance with Laurent’s fine boned looks, though her hair possesses a coppery tinge, and not the white blonde of her kin.

“Princess, Lady Delphine,” Damen says hurriedly, hiding a wince when Jokaste’s elbow makes firm contact with his unarmoured side.

Eleuftheria smiles, the effect transforming her face from its usual horse-like cast. “Your majesty,” she murmurs, “we’ve prepared a small feast in your honour.”

He protests, vainly, that he is here on a simple visit, and begs his hosts not to bestir themselves. However, between Alais’ blithe disregard and the Patrans’ insistence, he yields. Trying not to show his embarrassment, Damen suppresses the shuffling of his feet and thanks his hosts.

“My, they are just throwing the womenfolk at you.” Jokaste whispers as servants seat them at separate tables for the impromptu banquet. Damen, robbed of the opportunity to reply, settles for making faces at her behind her back. The state of affairs at home had grown rather dire as well, which is why they are out on progress in the first place - but of course Damen cannot escape the expectations of matchmakers even in the wilds of Vere. 

“It is high time your majesty married,” Philokrates says cheerfully, as he too, is directed elsewhere.

Damen stares at his departing figure, wondering if this is all an elaborately laid trap of Jokaste’s, to force his hand and secure the succession. He had grown used to recognizing the signs of late, but it is entirely possible she has changed her tactics, first to keep him alert and second, to trick him into marriage so she can safely place her attentions elsewhere. Damen, stubborn in this as in all things, argues in vain that his queen should be of his own choice.

“Your mother’s dowry saved Akielos from three years of bad harvests, and I needn’t explain why a Patran princess became your grandmother.” Jokaste had repeated over and over again, but Damen cannot find it in himself to accept a stranger, after the shattering blows that were Kastor’s and Hypermenestra’s deceptions.

At supper, Lady Delphine and Princess Eleuftheria monopolize his conversation, as he is forced to recount the story of how he stole an orchard’s worth of apricots under the cover of night. All his attempts to rise from his seat, to circulate, and perhaps to steal a moment with Laurent, are stymied by Lady Delphine’s oblivious enthusiasm for tales of Akielos. When he can, Damen stares at Jokaste, certain that his eyes promise death. 

While the servants arrange the monstrous sugar-spun subtlety, formed in the shape of a leaping stag, Alais stands and toasts Damen, while he feels his face flame with mortification, once more unused to the fine words natural to a Veretian. 

Lady Delphine claps her hands together and announces, “Oh, I should love to see how your majesty defeated the rebels in the Thracian hillside!”

Princess Eleuftheria, who Damen decides either possesses an undetectably wry sense of humour or is simply possessed, adds, “We shall have your generals demonstrate for us, on the main field. It will be a fine ending to this feast, and the light should last for more than enough time.” 

On the far side of the tent, Philokrates chokes on his wine. Across from him, Kassander and Theodoros create a small storm of fuss as they rush to claim participants. 

_You are all mad_ , Damen mouths to Jokaste, who only smirks and leads the rest of the Akielons to the main field.

In the confusion, Damen sees Laurent step away, neatly evading the people milling around him. Somehow he loses the golden beacon of his hair in the multitude of brilliantly dyed tents, and then he is too busy escaping the festive crowd of Akielons, Veretians, and Patrans to search for it again. Damen walks along the edge of the forest, inexplicably dispirited. He looks up sometime later, to see Laurent sitting in a tree, body curved like finely tempered metal as he studies a leather-bound tome with rapt attention.

For a moment, he stands and takes note of the changes the past three years have wrought in Laurent, the firmness of his expression and confidence of bearing that fill his slender build with the impression of strength. He looks so utterly at home in much the same way he did in the Akielon orchards. Damen is seized with the need to touch him, feel the reality of Laurent under his fingertips, allow him to once again take root in Damen’s life.

“If you’re hoping to escape my sister’s clutches,” Laurent says, still focused on his book, “I would suggest capitulation.”

“So they _are_ trying to make me choose,” Damen muses, half to himself.

“Were I you,” Laurent replies, shutting the book with a dull thump, “I would marry Eleuftheria of Patras. Delphine is family, and we are by nature difficult.”

Damen grins up at him. “What if I like difficult?”

Against the light, his head haloed by the sun filtered through leaves, Laurent’s expression is a cipher, a forgotten code that might be learned again, with enough effort and patience.

“Your kyroi will require persuading.” Laurent says, finally, sliding gracefully down the tree. 

“My kyroi will require bribery, you mean.” Damen counters readily.

“‘ _Thus the bride leaves her mother, gentle love and beauty blessed_.’” Laurent quotes, eyebrows raised. “And which felicitous maiden have you chosen to go to the altar as your sacrifice?”

“If she heard you describe her thus, Jokaste would probably hit you.” He says, as Laurent steps closer. 

Damen reaches for one slender wrist, taking the hand palm up and kissing each fingertip. “You - you planned this.” Laurent breathes, accusatory, eyes dark.

“No, I didn’t.” He considers for a moment, heart soaring at the sight of Laurent before him. “Being placed amidst so many eligible ladies simply provided incentives to choose carefully. As it happens, you are the only ones I will trust with my throne and my heart all at once.”

Laurent doesn’t take his hand away, a smile curling at the corners of his mouth. “Does she know that she is being volunteered in this manner?” 

“Ah, now.” Damen says, giddy, “Jokaste will require persuading.”

-

Under cover of twilight, they manage to stumble their way back to the encampment, Damen steering the way to Jokaste’s personal quarters. 

“I-“ Laurent begins, and then stops, apparently at a loss for words for once. The downward sweep of his gilt-edged lashes is infinitely alluring, and in that moment, Damen could not care if the whole of Ios fell into the channel of Isthima. He strokes a milky white cheek with his thumb, smile widening when Laurent looks back up at him, pupils blown open, breath catching in his chest. “If this-“ he tries to say, and Damen closes the remaining distance between them.

A little while later, between soft kisses to the corner of Laurent’s mouth, to his bottom lip, to the space where jaw meets neck, Laurent tilting his head to allow better access, Laurent says, “I should warn you, I lack the easy mannerisms that are shared with a lover.” Damen’s nose brushes the hollow of Laurent’s throat, and he gasps a little, responsive.

Damen steps forward, so that they are pressed together from shoulder to hip, and murmurs into Laurent’s ear, “You lack the easy mannerisms that are usually shared with anyone.” At this, Laurent’s arm settles around his neck, tension bleeding out of Laurent’s body little by little. Damen has just enough time to see twin slivers of gulf blue eyes gleam at him, before Laurent kisses him, mouth soft, the silk pennants of the brightly coloured tents snapping high above them.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you's are due to my intrepid beta deathsblood, who volunteered after increasingly tearful appeals and put up with my awful first draft attempts and a very short schedule in which to do revisions. You went above and beyond the call of duty, and I'm so very grateful.
> 
> Honourable mentions go out to my support network, who laughed when I told them what I was going write and presumably laughed even harder as I reported the ongoing train wreck that was the word count. Thanks for the hand-holding, guys.


End file.
